Arrangements in Blue

When poet Amy Key was growing up, she looked forward to a life shaped by romance, fuelled by desire, longing and the conventional markers of success that come when you share a life with another person. But that didn't happen for her. Now in her forties, she sets out to explore the realities of a life lived in the absence of romantic love, in her new book, Arrangements in Blue.

Using Joni Mitchell's seminal album Blue - an album that shaped Amy's expectations of love - as her guide, she examines the unexpected life she has created for herself.

Amy is joined by Bristol-based writer and performer Vanessa Kisuule as they talk about the painful feelings we are usually too ashamed to discuss: loneliness, envy, grief and failure.