Nicholson Baird creates ‘The Bluest Book’
Written By Madelyn Conlin-Day, Photographs By Madelyn Conlin-Day, Images Courtesy of Nicholson Baird
Nicholson Baird is a second-year Fibers student with a captive audience. His personal project, “The Bluest Book,” started February 2020 and has blossomed into a series of beautiful and tragic poems about love, anger and sadness. “The Bluest Book” at its foundation is simple; poems handwritten by Baird in a royal blue notebook that caught his attention by happenstance in the Museum of Modern Art.
“It’s very directed towards an individual,” said Baird whose spite-fueled words are masked by childish scratch and smiles in the “O’s.” Originally, Baird started the Instagram page for a mystery man (to the intended individual) to see his hurt feelings and the idea of other people caring about his writing was an afterthought.
“Because of the way that people reacted in such a positive manner, it gave me the green light to be, okay,” said Baird who found it “a little freaky” in the beginning once he saw his friends starting to follow his account.
Baird’s writing has made it clear that in order to write a meaningful poem one does not have to create extravagant euphemisms or use fancy poetry jargon. When asked about what makes his writing successful Baird said, “I think because of the emotional ties I have to almost all of it that it’s made it more powerful.” Each poem can be tied to an exact feeling the he felt in a moment spent with his former special someone.
“The Bluest Book” has recently blossomed into playful blue sweatshirts with Baird’s fun handwriting featuring “silly” statements like “Be Gay, Do Crimes, Drink a lot, Get Paid, Buy Prada, Don’t Sleep” and “I’m from the Midwest but I am still cool as f*** !!!” There are even sweatpants that exclaim “BE GAY” on the butt that are a personal favorite of his mother who frequently wears them around the his house in Ohio.
His sweatshirts gained a lot of popularity here in Savannah as well. “I was going to Fox and Fig and I was wearing mine [sweatshirt] and the waiters were like, Oh, two or three other people have been here today with the same sweatshirt,” said Baird.
Walking through downtown Savannah and SCAD academic halls it would not be a surprise to see someone sporting Nicholson’s sweatshirts. His most recent shipments have gone to Colorado, Michigan and New York. “It’s just cool. Watching it spread around,” said Baird when asked about the attention outside of his friends for his sweatshirts and poems.
With all the success around it now, one’s got to wonder. Where is “The Bluest Book” headed next? Baird has entered a new stage in life; finding love again and living his life on his own terms. The future is unknown but positive.
“I like writing about sad things. I don’t find it easy to write about happy things. I feel like that’s how most people are. Now it’s like a new challenge of how can I take anecdotes from when I was in that head space and like bring it into now. So that’s what I’m working on now. Cause I want to write again, just a new POV,” said Baird.
You can find “The Bluest Book” on Instagram.
