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The Crying Book
Award-winning poet Heather Christle has just lost a dear friend to suicide and must reckon with her own struggles with depression and the birth of her first child. How she faces her joy, grief, anxiety, impending motherhood, and conflicted truce with the world results in a moving meditation on the nature, rapture, and perils of crying―from the history of tear-catching gadgets (including the woman who designed a gun that shoots tears) to the science behind animal tears (including moths who drink them) to the fraught role of white women's tears in racist violence.
Told in short, poetic snippets, The Crying Book delights and surprises, as well as rigorously examines how mental illness can affect a family across generations and how crying can express women’s agency―or lack of agency―in everyday life. Christle’s gift is the freshness of her voice and honesty of her approach, both of which create an intimacy with readers as she explores a human behavior broadly experienced but rarely questioned. A beautiful tribute to the power of crying, and to working through despair to tears of joy.
Told in short, poetic snippets, The Crying Book delights and surprises, as well as rigorously examines how mental illness can affect a family across generations and how crying can express women’s agency―or lack of agency―in everyday life. Christle’s gift is the freshness of her voice and honesty of her approach, both of which create an intimacy with readers as she explores a human behavior broadly experienced but rarely questioned. A beautiful tribute to the power of crying, and to working through despair to tears of joy.
208 pages, Paperback
First published November 5, 2019
About the author
Heather Christle
15 books263 followersHeather Christle is the author of The Crying Book (Catapult), a NYT Editor’s Choice, Indie Next Selection, and national bestseller that was translated into eight languages, awarded the Georgia Book Award for memoir, and adapted for radio by the BBC. An Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University in Atlanta, Christle is also the author of four poetry collections including The Trees The Trees (Octopus Books), which won the Believer Book Award and was adapted into a ballet by the Pacific Northwest Ballet. In 2021 she was the recipient of a George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation Fellowship in nonfiction. Born in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire to a Merchant Mariner from North Dakota and an artist from London, Christle spent her teen years and early twenties immersed in the Boston punk scene. She attended Tufts University, graduating in 2004. After receiving her MFA from UMass Amherst in 2009, she was a Creative Writing Fellow at Emory University from 2009-11, and has also taught at UT Austin and Sarah Lawrence College. She lives in Decatur, Georgia, with her partner (poet and writer Christopher DeWeese), their child, and two cats.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 549 reviews
January 12, 2021
Fiction or non-fiction, I want a story. Sadly, this had none but just incomplete ones and snippets. So no.
November 20, 2019
I’ve always been fascinated by the roles tears play in women’s lives. This book by the marvellous poet Heather Christel is a meditation on tears from those of children to those of mothers to those of philosophers. It touches on the shame of tears, the weaponizing of tears and so many other things. And there is a section that discusses the burial rites of dolls overseen by their young guardians that is both hilarious and deeply profound. This book will make you weepy. I loved it.
May 12, 2020
“The Crying Book” (2020) is an interesting book of brief stories, facts and trivia written by Heather Christle--an award winning poet, she teaches creative writing at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
“Tears are a sign of powerlessness, a woman’s weapon. It has been a very long war.” (quote) Tears are scrutinized, judged as genuine grief or not, prompt a sympathetic response from others, raise uneasiness or discomfort, offer stress relief etc. “Cry Hustling” is a form of pretend grief. The stories are brief in the book: Christle explores the writing of feminist author Bell Hooks. The attempted suicide of Ester Greenwood is mentioned in Sylvia Plath’s fictionalized autobiography “The Bell Jar” (1963).
One of the most fascinating stories in the book was about was the mysterious ghostly apparition of La Llorona. The legend/curse is based on Spanish/Latin folklore: “The Weeping Woman” La Llorona, drowned her children in a river after she was deserted by her husband. This fact was actually quite chilling, considering the horrific crimes of Susan Smith: a mother that drowned her toddler sons in a Union, South Carolina lake (1994). Then, Andrea Yates: who drowned her five children in the family bathtub in Houston, Texas (2001). Both women are serving a life sentence.
The minimum notations included from her own life: were her unhappiness in childhood, the death of her friend, her own painful abortion. In addition, Christle wrote of living with her husband, her desire to have a child, the memory of mother’s hospitalization in a mental facility, and her own severe depression that led to extensive crying spells. Christle’s stories and research often seemed scattered, disjointed, many stories lacked in detail, or writerly depth and insight. (2* FAIR) ** With thanks to the Seattle Public Library.
“Tears are a sign of powerlessness, a woman’s weapon. It has been a very long war.” (quote) Tears are scrutinized, judged as genuine grief or not, prompt a sympathetic response from others, raise uneasiness or discomfort, offer stress relief etc. “Cry Hustling” is a form of pretend grief. The stories are brief in the book: Christle explores the writing of feminist author Bell Hooks. The attempted suicide of Ester Greenwood is mentioned in Sylvia Plath’s fictionalized autobiography “The Bell Jar” (1963).
One of the most fascinating stories in the book was about was the mysterious ghostly apparition of La Llorona. The legend/curse is based on Spanish/Latin folklore: “The Weeping Woman” La Llorona, drowned her children in a river after she was deserted by her husband. This fact was actually quite chilling, considering the horrific crimes of Susan Smith: a mother that drowned her toddler sons in a Union, South Carolina lake (1994). Then, Andrea Yates: who drowned her five children in the family bathtub in Houston, Texas (2001). Both women are serving a life sentence.
The minimum notations included from her own life: were her unhappiness in childhood, the death of her friend, her own painful abortion. In addition, Christle wrote of living with her husband, her desire to have a child, the memory of mother’s hospitalization in a mental facility, and her own severe depression that led to extensive crying spells. Christle’s stories and research often seemed scattered, disjointed, many stories lacked in detail, or writerly depth and insight. (2* FAIR) ** With thanks to the Seattle Public Library.
November 20, 2019
I have many complicated feelings about this book so coming up with a rating took some deliberating. The biggest hang up I have is definitely my expectations going in. I love the idea of a book that explores crying. Crying is such a common practice for me (which, wow, doesn't make me sound very stable, but whatever I'm a watery bitch) that this book quickly became a highly anticipated release.
But here's the thing: while in theory this is everything I wanted, the execution left me wanting. This felt like an exercise, a warm up, a series of unfinished outlines. I wanted full essays, historical and social discussion, some way to dissect this act. You can tell Christle is a poet and her style is definitely a high point, but it doesn't change the fact that this is more or less 160 pages of free-association. This is closer to lyric essays than analysis and for me, it suffered because of it. More than anything else, this felt like a person constantly being interrupted leaving messages to theirself, trying to write their way through life and grief.
tw: talks of depression, suicide, post-partum depression, electroshock therapy
But here's the thing: while in theory this is everything I wanted, the execution left me wanting. This felt like an exercise, a warm up, a series of unfinished outlines. I wanted full essays, historical and social discussion, some way to dissect this act. You can tell Christle is a poet and her style is definitely a high point, but it doesn't change the fact that this is more or less 160 pages of free-association. This is closer to lyric essays than analysis and for me, it suffered because of it. More than anything else, this felt like a person constantly being interrupted leaving messages to theirself, trying to write their way through life and grief.
tw: talks of depression, suicide, post-partum depression, electroshock therapy
November 29, 2019
“Empathy can be a hole through which one falls into despair. Tears make the ground slippery. And then what? Satisfaction for the depth of one’s feelings? If I am not myself in danger, then my imagining myself into the place of another’s suffering unnecessarily incapacitates me, makes me unable to move some small part of my day in a direction that would make other lives more possible. And at this moment, my body still working to knit itself back together, the task is not to fall apart. The task is to remain.”
Heather Christle’s The Crying Book is not only a moving manifesto on tears but also on the infinite ways in which they can draw us closer or further away from humanity. But bleating beneath that teary-eyed sentiment — a friend’s suicide, a surge of maternal grief, and the sharp calmness after such calamities — is what kept me leafing well into the wee hours. I thoroughly enjoyed Christle’s inquest into the ways in which tears strip us naked of our defenses but also how they can be weaponized to spark acts of racist violence. (Such honesty is lacking these days, so to hear her acknowledge the scary phenomena was… refreshing.) Another aspect of Christle's book I appreciated was her approach to unpacking the notion of tears as a response to grief and suffering — from the Kent State massacre to the sailors who died in WWII to the fatal mourning experienced by elephants.
As the book asks, one of my safest places to cry is in the car — precisely while driving to music during a storm. A few nights ago, after birthday festivities, I took the long way back home and Sufjan Stevens’ “Visions of Gideon” began to play. That song, which I first heard in Call Me by Your Name, still reminds me of all the hurt I experienced this summer, but once I came to, the moment dissolved as suddenly as it started. I decided to keep the record spinning the whole drive home. Even when I made it home, I reclined my seat and held on to that feeling for as long as I could. What Christle’s book does is give us all the permission we need to root ourselves in that emotion — be it in public or private spaces or in the safe embrace of the pouring rain. In other words, if you ever needed a reason to cry more often, reach for this beautiful book.
Thanks again, Catapult friends, for sending me this lovely little read just in time before it releases.
If you liked my review, feel free to follow me @parisperusing on Instagram.
Heather Christle’s The Crying Book is not only a moving manifesto on tears but also on the infinite ways in which they can draw us closer or further away from humanity. But bleating beneath that teary-eyed sentiment — a friend’s suicide, a surge of maternal grief, and the sharp calmness after such calamities — is what kept me leafing well into the wee hours. I thoroughly enjoyed Christle’s inquest into the ways in which tears strip us naked of our defenses but also how they can be weaponized to spark acts of racist violence. (Such honesty is lacking these days, so to hear her acknowledge the scary phenomena was… refreshing.) Another aspect of Christle's book I appreciated was her approach to unpacking the notion of tears as a response to grief and suffering — from the Kent State massacre to the sailors who died in WWII to the fatal mourning experienced by elephants.
As the book asks, one of my safest places to cry is in the car — precisely while driving to music during a storm. A few nights ago, after birthday festivities, I took the long way back home and Sufjan Stevens’ “Visions of Gideon” began to play. That song, which I first heard in Call Me by Your Name, still reminds me of all the hurt I experienced this summer, but once I came to, the moment dissolved as suddenly as it started. I decided to keep the record spinning the whole drive home. Even when I made it home, I reclined my seat and held on to that feeling for as long as I could. What Christle’s book does is give us all the permission we need to root ourselves in that emotion — be it in public or private spaces or in the safe embrace of the pouring rain. In other words, if you ever needed a reason to cry more often, reach for this beautiful book.
Thanks again, Catapult friends, for sending me this lovely little read just in time before it releases.
If you liked my review, feel free to follow me @parisperusing on Instagram.
April 15, 2021
Videorecensione: https://youtu.be/e1DDIoFUQ2c
September 20, 2019
When, where, why do we cry? How is it that some are predisposed to cry little and others to weep endlessly? Why does it so often feel shameful? When does it relieve us, does it trap us in depression? Peaceful and powerful, The Crying Book is a poetic examination of the art of weeping. Poet Heather Christle meditates on tears, grief, in a graceful mourning song held together by personal experiences, scientific insight, and her most beloved—poetry. In the face of great loss, Christle’s account is crystalline and mystical, a necessary embrace for the bereaved, and validating manifesto to the tearful.
August 14, 2022
"I believe in ending sentences with a preposition in order to give the ideas a way out." (Heather Christle, The Crying Book, p. 80)
This book consists of about 170 pages of loosely-knitted short poetic prose vignettes, all pertaining (sometimes very tangentially) to the subject of crying. Having grown up as one of those kids who was often reprimanded and mocked by my elders for being a kid who "cried too much," I was drawn to this title, wanted to know what it had to say about such social mind-games constructed around criers and crying.
Many of the vignettes are of the personal-memoir sort, relating the writer's experiences with depression, family history of the same, a friend's death, a first pregnancy and the postpartum period. Some of the pregnancy/postpartum bits hit hard: e.g., "the radio says...a steamship...was split in two by another ship in heavy fog.... I understand this as a metaphor for giving birth."
Other vignettes recount factoids gleaned from various researchers' scientific and anthropological investigations into the subject of crying (e.g., "Byzantine physicians wrote that you could recognize a werewolf by its tearlessness"). Of these passages, some of the most fascinatingly charged ones deal with how one's gender influences the way one cries, or the way one's crying is perceived. Men's crying is often unjustly reviled as a sign of weakness; even Christle herself, who tries to be open-minded, admits to feeling "anger and disgust" on once seeing her male partner weep over spilling water on his laptop, even as part of her brain understands his reasons and understands that it is not fair to judge him this way. One transgender friend of Christle is quoted as saying he cried less after transitioning than before: "Without physical release, the sadness retranslated itself as anger." Christle also comes across a 2013 scientific article reporting that the enjoyment of "hedonic reversal" (that is, the enjoyment of scary movies and spicy food precisely because they are not as physically damaging as the body initially anticipates them to be) is a universal human trait, but that the enjoyment of sad books and movies in particular seems to be more common among women. Christle speculates on what these very complex relationships among grief, rage, gender, and power may have to do with the violence and killing that are rampant in our society. The goal seems to be not to come to any definitive conclusion but to simply present the ideas for the reader's consideration and further exploration.
This book consists of about 170 pages of loosely-knitted short poetic prose vignettes, all pertaining (sometimes very tangentially) to the subject of crying. Having grown up as one of those kids who was often reprimanded and mocked by my elders for being a kid who "cried too much," I was drawn to this title, wanted to know what it had to say about such social mind-games constructed around criers and crying.
Many of the vignettes are of the personal-memoir sort, relating the writer's experiences with depression, family history of the same, a friend's death, a first pregnancy and the postpartum period. Some of the pregnancy/postpartum bits hit hard: e.g., "the radio says...a steamship...was split in two by another ship in heavy fog.... I understand this as a metaphor for giving birth."
Other vignettes recount factoids gleaned from various researchers' scientific and anthropological investigations into the subject of crying (e.g., "Byzantine physicians wrote that you could recognize a werewolf by its tearlessness"). Of these passages, some of the most fascinatingly charged ones deal with how one's gender influences the way one cries, or the way one's crying is perceived. Men's crying is often unjustly reviled as a sign of weakness; even Christle herself, who tries to be open-minded, admits to feeling "anger and disgust" on once seeing her male partner weep over spilling water on his laptop, even as part of her brain understands his reasons and understands that it is not fair to judge him this way. One transgender friend of Christle is quoted as saying he cried less after transitioning than before: "Without physical release, the sadness retranslated itself as anger." Christle also comes across a 2013 scientific article reporting that the enjoyment of "hedonic reversal" (that is, the enjoyment of scary movies and spicy food precisely because they are not as physically damaging as the body initially anticipates them to be) is a universal human trait, but that the enjoyment of sad books and movies in particular seems to be more common among women. Christle speculates on what these very complex relationships among grief, rage, gender, and power may have to do with the violence and killing that are rampant in our society. The goal seems to be not to come to any definitive conclusion but to simply present the ideas for the reader's consideration and further exploration.
February 4, 2019
Why do we cry? How do we cry? And what does it mean? A scientific, cultural, artistic examination by a young poet on the cusp of motherhood.
April 7, 2022
Poetic prose that sometimes really worked and sometimes really didn’t. By the end I was ready for it to be done.
October 13, 2024
i loved this beautiful blend of memoir, poetry, and cultural/psychological study. my regret is reading it in audiobook format, as the rather robotic narration certainly does the book a disservice. it also seems like an ideal book to be savored, read in small and potent doses.
christle has compiled so many painful anecdotes and salient references. tear gas, white tears, brutalities, professional mourners. infants, born crying, yet tearless for their first few months of life. bell hooks, virginia woolf, judith butler, sylvia plath, michelle tea. la llorona, peter pan, and alice in wonderland. all this, with pieces of science and psychology and cultural histories of tears. this book is like a tender collage, so many beautiful pieces, disparate and perhaps fragmental, yet building a cohesive whole.
✧✧✧
hugely appreciative that christle gives the reader permission to use the verb "to despair," rather than simplifying their emotions into more commonplace depression or sadness. sometimes you cannot function because you are busy experiencing despair.
✧✧✧
what a very poetic piece of creative nonfiction. though i haven't read it in many years, i was reminded of maggie nelson's bluets. i think they both bear rereading - perhaps someday in the future when i am experiencing despair.
christle has compiled so many painful anecdotes and salient references. tear gas, white tears, brutalities, professional mourners. infants, born crying, yet tearless for their first few months of life. bell hooks, virginia woolf, judith butler, sylvia plath, michelle tea. la llorona, peter pan, and alice in wonderland. all this, with pieces of science and psychology and cultural histories of tears. this book is like a tender collage, so many beautiful pieces, disparate and perhaps fragmental, yet building a cohesive whole.
Empathy can be a hole through which one falls into despair. Tears make the ground slippery. And then what? Satisfaction for the depth of one’s feelings? If I am not myself in danger, then my imagining myself into the place of another’s suffering unnecessarily incapacitates me, makes me unable to move some small part of my day in a direction that would make other lives more possible. And at this moment, my body still working to knit itself back together, the task is not to fall apart. The task is to remain.
✧✧✧
hugely appreciative that christle gives the reader permission to use the verb "to despair," rather than simplifying their emotions into more commonplace depression or sadness. sometimes you cannot function because you are busy experiencing despair.
Despair recognizes its own ridiculousness, its emotional exaggeration. It invites you to say, like Anne of Green Gables, that you are in "the depths of despair." It makes no space for shallows.
✧✧✧
what a very poetic piece of creative nonfiction. though i haven't read it in many years, i was reminded of maggie nelson's bluets. i think they both bear rereading - perhaps someday in the future when i am experiencing despair.
The floor is the only thing that can hold me. If I could go any lower I would.
January 10, 2022
so many people want to write maggie nelson's bluets but they will never write maggie nelson's bluets
also, it has to be said... her discussion of white women's tears is idiotic. I know that many pop feminist essays/books by women of colour push this idea that white women tears are the most powerful force on earth, but this is obviously, blatantly untrue. men selectively pretend to care about white women's tears here and there, when it suits them, when it matches what they were already going to do. if men cared about white women's tears do you think we would live in the rampantly sexist society that we do? do you think we would have the rates of sexual assault and domestic violence that we do? workplace sexism? jfc, use your brain.
but christle does the opposite of using her brain - she actually invents a white woman to be upset about when she's discussing the murder of john crawford III. christle imagines that the white man who falsely reported that crawford was waving a gun around did so in defence of a white woman, in defence of this woman's hypothetical white woman tears, when that's literally not true and contrary to the facts as she herself reports them. the caller falsely reported that crawford was waving the gun around at "children"; he made no mention of women, white women, or white women tears. but christle thinks what a great turn of events, if a white woman this white man was trying to protect through his phone call ended up dying when they police were called (as angela williams, the mother of the children mentioned in the call did), and so adds this into her analysis when it is literally not true!
and that's one of the primary problems with this white woman tears focus - it just invites white women to narcissistically focus on their 'inherent' guilt in existing as white women, which is idiotic. white women's attention should be brought to how their actions are racist, how they contribute to racism, the history of racism, because that is productive! directing white women to think they are inherently responsible for the racist actions of racist white men by the mere fact of their existence, jfc.
also, it has to be said... her discussion of white women's tears is idiotic. I know that many pop feminist essays/books by women of colour push this idea that white women tears are the most powerful force on earth, but this is obviously, blatantly untrue. men selectively pretend to care about white women's tears here and there, when it suits them, when it matches what they were already going to do. if men cared about white women's tears do you think we would live in the rampantly sexist society that we do? do you think we would have the rates of sexual assault and domestic violence that we do? workplace sexism? jfc, use your brain.
but christle does the opposite of using her brain - she actually invents a white woman to be upset about when she's discussing the murder of john crawford III. christle imagines that the white man who falsely reported that crawford was waving a gun around did so in defence of a white woman, in defence of this woman's hypothetical white woman tears, when that's literally not true and contrary to the facts as she herself reports them. the caller falsely reported that crawford was waving the gun around at "children"; he made no mention of women, white women, or white women tears. but christle thinks what a great turn of events, if a white woman this white man was trying to protect through his phone call ended up dying when they police were called (as angela williams, the mother of the children mentioned in the call did), and so adds this into her analysis when it is literally not true!
and that's one of the primary problems with this white woman tears focus - it just invites white women to narcissistically focus on their 'inherent' guilt in existing as white women, which is idiotic. white women's attention should be brought to how their actions are racist, how they contribute to racism, the history of racism, because that is productive! directing white women to think they are inherently responsible for the racist actions of racist white men by the mere fact of their existence, jfc.
June 2, 2019
"I say book. I mean poem. I mean the way the landscape suddenly reveals itself in layers, a vertical light shining its connective beam from one moment to the next. An entry into — an awareness of — a dimension always present. Not always seen. I think if I can keep myself alive to it, it will keep me from going under."
Nothing less than a book which recreates the terms by which one might, somehow, live.
Nothing less than a book which recreates the terms by which one might, somehow, live.
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November 26, 2020«Prefiero llorar con un amigo, pero últimamente paso mucho tiempo sola».
Hoy vengo aquí a reivindicar las lágrimas y el llanto. Ya sea por alegría, tristeza, cansancio, rabia, impotencia, miedo, ternura..., es una de las emociones más bonitas, catárticas y sinceras que tenemos. ¿Por qué nos avergüenza y la menospreciamos tanto?
Me enfada mucho cuando la gente identifica llorar con debilidad, cuando para mí es todo lo contrario, una señal de fortaleza. «tan pequeñica y sincera, aunque me vean ustedes, no crean que tengo miedo, que me atrevo con cualquiera...»
No solo se llora de tristeza o dolor, a mí me emocionan mucho los gestos de bondad y ternura, por ejemplo...y así una canción, una película, un momento feliz o un recuerdo; visitar ciertos lugares, despedirnos de ellos; una lectura...logran abrir esas compuertas que muchas veces ocultamos para dar una imagen de (falso) aplomo.
«Algunas mañanas me despierto con una sensación intensa que no puedo identificar como ganas de llorar, o de escribir un poema, o de follar. ¿Todo a la vez? Mi cuerpo ha clasificado el impulso en un índice de referencias cruzadas».
De todo esto y más habla Heather Christle en este maravilloso, honesto y precioso libro. Un pequeño mapa de lágrimas que conectan arte, cultura, música, feminismo, maternidad, enfermedad mental o violencia. A pesar de ser un libro fragmentario, cada párrafo encaja perfectamente con el siguiente, formando un relato compacto y coherente repleto de poesía... y también humor.
«Un día le digo por teléfono que si empiezo a llorar quiero que se ponga a cacarear como una gallina. Cuando me tiembla la voz, Emily se asusta y empieza a graznar como un pato. Y entonces río y lloro a la vez -con lágrimas, mucho ruido y agradecida- y es como si el corazón se me volviera del revés».
Hay que dar espacio y aire a las emociones para evitar que se enquisten. Si la manera de expresarlas es a través de las lágrimas, no pasa nada. Hay muchos momentos que nos emocionan, este año más si cabe, por eso deberíamos hacerlo con orgullo y no subestimar a quien lo hace.
Ojalá no perdamos nunca la capacidad de emocionarnos.
«¿Y si entre lo cantos de tristeza pudiese oír también un estribillo de dulzura?».
Hoy vengo aquí a reivindicar las lágrimas y el llanto. Ya sea por alegría, tristeza, cansancio, rabia, impotencia, miedo, ternura..., es una de las emociones más bonitas, catárticas y sinceras que tenemos. ¿Por qué nos avergüenza y la menospreciamos tanto?
Me enfada mucho cuando la gente identifica llorar con debilidad, cuando para mí es todo lo contrario, una señal de fortaleza. «tan pequeñica y sincera, aunque me vean ustedes, no crean que tengo miedo, que me atrevo con cualquiera...»
No solo se llora de tristeza o dolor, a mí me emocionan mucho los gestos de bondad y ternura, por ejemplo...y así una canción, una película, un momento feliz o un recuerdo; visitar ciertos lugares, despedirnos de ellos; una lectura...logran abrir esas compuertas que muchas veces ocultamos para dar una imagen de (falso) aplomo.
«Algunas mañanas me despierto con una sensación intensa que no puedo identificar como ganas de llorar, o de escribir un poema, o de follar. ¿Todo a la vez? Mi cuerpo ha clasificado el impulso en un índice de referencias cruzadas».
De todo esto y más habla Heather Christle en este maravilloso, honesto y precioso libro. Un pequeño mapa de lágrimas que conectan arte, cultura, música, feminismo, maternidad, enfermedad mental o violencia. A pesar de ser un libro fragmentario, cada párrafo encaja perfectamente con el siguiente, formando un relato compacto y coherente repleto de poesía... y también humor.
«Un día le digo por teléfono que si empiezo a llorar quiero que se ponga a cacarear como una gallina. Cuando me tiembla la voz, Emily se asusta y empieza a graznar como un pato. Y entonces río y lloro a la vez -con lágrimas, mucho ruido y agradecida- y es como si el corazón se me volviera del revés».
Hay que dar espacio y aire a las emociones para evitar que se enquisten. Si la manera de expresarlas es a través de las lágrimas, no pasa nada. Hay muchos momentos que nos emocionan, este año más si cabe, por eso deberíamos hacerlo con orgullo y no subestimar a quien lo hace.
Ojalá no perdamos nunca la capacidad de emocionarnos.
«¿Y si entre lo cantos de tristeza pudiese oír también un estribillo de dulzura?».
August 17, 2020
This was a very soft read.
August 25, 2021
L’universalità del pianto
Il libro delle lacrime ha una struttura frammentaria.
Heather Christle raccoglie istantanee e ne fa un collage armonioso ed elegante.
Un grido forte e calmo che rivendica tutta la vulnerabilità dell’essere umano.
Lacrime come concetto, come fatto biologico, chimico, come soggetto culturale, arma o bisogno vitale.
Per spiegarle cita autori, poeti, artisti ( tra gli altri :Judith Butler, Roland Barthes, Joan Didion, Anne Carson, Sylvia Plath, Bas Jan Ander ), testimoni e perciò "esperti " del dolore
Tra saggio ed esercizio lirico, il libro è un intenso viaggio nato circa cinque anni fa, quando l’autrice si è chiesta come sarebbe stato disegnare la mappa dei luoghi dove aveva pianto.
La Christle rivendica il diritto umano di lasciarsi trasportare dalle lacrime, di piangere, perché siamo vivi e sappiamo di essere mortali, soffriamo e amiamo
Da quel semplice pensiero, Heather Christle inizia la raccolta di tutte quelle informazioni riguardanti il pianto che le passavano per le mani, mentre nella sua vita avvenivano cambiamenti profondi .
Il libro delle lacrime è anche un diario che raccoglie luci e ombre dei processi vitali(la gravidanza, il parto la genitorialità ), ma anche i disaccordi con sé stessa, l’ambiente, le lettere ad un amico che non c'è più..
Come scrivere di lacrime senza piangere per chi non c’è più ?
“Quando non mi trovo nella disperazione sono a stento capace di descriverla. È una botola nella mia vita. Un ponte verso nessun luogo. È solo una metafora, una riga. Ma è un ponte attraverso il quale invio il mio amore.”
Il libro delle lacrime ha una struttura frammentaria.
Heather Christle raccoglie istantanee e ne fa un collage armonioso ed elegante.
Un grido forte e calmo che rivendica tutta la vulnerabilità dell’essere umano.
Lacrime come concetto, come fatto biologico, chimico, come soggetto culturale, arma o bisogno vitale.
Per spiegarle cita autori, poeti, artisti ( tra gli altri :Judith Butler, Roland Barthes, Joan Didion, Anne Carson, Sylvia Plath, Bas Jan Ander ), testimoni e perciò "esperti " del dolore
Tra saggio ed esercizio lirico, il libro è un intenso viaggio nato circa cinque anni fa, quando l’autrice si è chiesta come sarebbe stato disegnare la mappa dei luoghi dove aveva pianto.
La Christle rivendica il diritto umano di lasciarsi trasportare dalle lacrime, di piangere, perché siamo vivi e sappiamo di essere mortali, soffriamo e amiamo
Da quel semplice pensiero, Heather Christle inizia la raccolta di tutte quelle informazioni riguardanti il pianto che le passavano per le mani, mentre nella sua vita avvenivano cambiamenti profondi .
Il libro delle lacrime è anche un diario che raccoglie luci e ombre dei processi vitali(la gravidanza, il parto la genitorialità ), ma anche i disaccordi con sé stessa, l’ambiente, le lettere ad un amico che non c'è più..
Come scrivere di lacrime senza piangere per chi non c’è più ?
“Quando non mi trovo nella disperazione sono a stento capace di descriverla. È una botola nella mia vita. Un ponte verso nessun luogo. È solo una metafora, una riga. Ma è un ponte attraverso il quale invio il mio amore.”
December 20, 2019
"It may interest you for a while to touch your swollen face, to peer into one bloodshot eye and another, but the beauty’s really in the movement, in watching your mouth try to swallow despair" (8)
November 26, 2019
I was not expecting the format, but I really liked how she approached the weaving together of her own experiences with detours into research and experiences of crying. Christle is a poet and that shows in this volume.
A few quotes that I had marked in the book:
"The car is a private crying area. If you see a person crying near a car, you may need to offer help. If you see a person crying inside a car, you know they are already held." (<--crying in the car is definitely my jam)
"Most crying happens at night. People cry out of fatigue. But how horrible it is to say, "She's just tired!" Tired yes, certainly, but just? There is nothing just about it."
"When I am in the fog of despair I fear I cry too much to be a good partner or parent or person, that something within me is utterly broken, that any reprieve--a day of joy! a poem!--is temporary and somehow false. But that is the fog doing its work, making everything large and grotesque. When the fog lifts I can point up, say Look, it is a cloud."
"I understand she is crying because she is witnessing a difficult and maybe sorrowful event. I understand I am not crying because I am the event."
"I say despair because it is a word that can live comfortably in a house without changing the building's purpose. It only changes the mood. Depression and suicidal ideation and anxiety all cast a stage or laboratory light. Even here, in this room. It shifts from paragraph to clinic."
A few quotes that I had marked in the book:
"The car is a private crying area. If you see a person crying near a car, you may need to offer help. If you see a person crying inside a car, you know they are already held." (<--crying in the car is definitely my jam)
"Most crying happens at night. People cry out of fatigue. But how horrible it is to say, "She's just tired!" Tired yes, certainly, but just? There is nothing just about it."
"When I am in the fog of despair I fear I cry too much to be a good partner or parent or person, that something within me is utterly broken, that any reprieve--a day of joy! a poem!--is temporary and somehow false. But that is the fog doing its work, making everything large and grotesque. When the fog lifts I can point up, say Look, it is a cloud."
"I understand she is crying because she is witnessing a difficult and maybe sorrowful event. I understand I am not crying because I am the event."
"I say despair because it is a word that can live comfortably in a house without changing the building's purpose. It only changes the mood. Depression and suicidal ideation and anxiety all cast a stage or laboratory light. Even here, in this room. It shifts from paragraph to clinic."
June 14, 2021
"Tears are a sign of powerlessness, a 'woman's weapon'. It has been a very long war."
I'm not sure that this little book can be considered a book of poetry exactly, more like little vignettes and snapshots that all centre around tears, crying, despair, weeping, sadness, happiness, and overall emotion. A good portion of this book really struck me to my core and I definitely see myself revisiting my annotations. Some of it went a bit over my head, I sometimes found myself reading pages without absorbing anything that was being said, but I think a lot of people can find inspiration from these pages that missed the mark for me.
I'm not sure that this little book can be considered a book of poetry exactly, more like little vignettes and snapshots that all centre around tears, crying, despair, weeping, sadness, happiness, and overall emotion. A good portion of this book really struck me to my core and I definitely see myself revisiting my annotations. Some of it went a bit over my head, I sometimes found myself reading pages without absorbing anything that was being said, but I think a lot of people can find inspiration from these pages that missed the mark for me.
November 24, 2019
i saw Heather Christle do a reading at my grad program 5-6 years ago and she mentioned she was writing a book on crying and ever since then i've periodically googled "heather christle crying book" because i wanted to read it and then FINALLY IT WAS MINE her writing is wonderful and this book is excellent 10/10 would cry again <3 <3
February 18, 2020
4.5
This really resonated with me. Perhaps because I’m a crier.
This really resonated with me. Perhaps because I’m a crier.
February 15, 2021
"Creo que las lágrimas más potentes son las que provoca un acontecimiento insignificante en medio de una gran tragedia."
April 21, 2023
I reread some pages over and over again, I think the concept of the book is unique, I absolutely recommend this book if you're going through though times it makes you feel less.... alone.
June 19, 2020
'Universitair studenten hebben berekend dat de gehele mensheid in één dag zelfs de kortste rivier op aarde nog niet volgehuild krijgt. Maar als we allemaal vijfenvijftig tranen voor onze rekening nemen, zou een olympisch zwembad wel moeten lukken'.
November 9, 2024
vraag me de komende weken eens wat mijn favoriete boeken zijn
March 30, 2021
La mia videorecensione: https://youtu.be/-GMdsewnRgM
November 7, 2019
All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.
First, big thanks to the folks over at Catapult for sending me a finished copy of The Crying Book. Accurately described as “a dazzling meditation on tears” and “a symphonic work of nonfiction,” it is a masterpiece.
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to see the world through a poet’s eyes? Heather Christle — who has published four poetry collections — gives us a glimpse. The Crying Book is part memoir, part physical exploration, part societal observation, and 100% emotion.
The book began, she says, as the idea to list all the places she had cried. Then she started researching tears more, and she lost a friend to suicide, and her daughter was born, and then years passed and the result is this genius book. It’s written in short snippets of prose, all of them stitched together with care. The feelings and ideas and themes move forward and backward, circle around on themselves, come back to punch you in the gut when you’re least expecting them.
It’s the kind of book where you just can’t help but pick up a pencil and start circling passages. I can already tell that I’m going to shove it into the hands of many friends and family members.
This book reaches into your gut and names the parts of yourself that you have been searching for. Doesn’t that sound like the best way to spend 171 pages?
First, big thanks to the folks over at Catapult for sending me a finished copy of The Crying Book. Accurately described as “a dazzling meditation on tears” and “a symphonic work of nonfiction,” it is a masterpiece.
“When I am not in despair I can barely even describe it. It is a trap door in my life. A bridge to nowhere. It is only a metaphor, a line. But one I send my love across.”
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to see the world through a poet’s eyes? Heather Christle — who has published four poetry collections — gives us a glimpse. The Crying Book is part memoir, part physical exploration, part societal observation, and 100% emotion.
The book began, she says, as the idea to list all the places she had cried. Then she started researching tears more, and she lost a friend to suicide, and her daughter was born, and then years passed and the result is this genius book. It’s written in short snippets of prose, all of them stitched together with care. The feelings and ideas and themes move forward and backward, circle around on themselves, come back to punch you in the gut when you’re least expecting them.
It’s the kind of book where you just can’t help but pick up a pencil and start circling passages. I can already tell that I’m going to shove it into the hands of many friends and family members.
“Friends keep sending me links to Rose-Lynn Fisher’s photography project ‘The Topography of Tears.’ It’s a series of photographs of dried tears taken through a microscope, the salt crystals forming little emotional terrains. The tears of grief blaze stark and mostly perpendicular, breaking here and there into clusters of curves. Onion tears are a dense and fernlike wallpaper. You could imagine it hanging in the house of a depthless decorator.”
This book reaches into your gut and names the parts of yourself that you have been searching for. Doesn’t that sound like the best way to spend 171 pages?
January 27, 2021
Libro fragmentario y misceláneo que combina lo autobiográfico y lo ensayístico. A partir de los problemas mentales o existenciales de la autora, esta investigación recopila en forma de notas cientos de reflexiones y datos sobre las lágrimas, el llanto y, quizás omitiendo el concepto, la depresión. Su visión crítica de la ciencia y su exaltación de la experiencia poética para abordar el asunto de la pena recorre el libro y le da un tono confesional y emotivo que implica al lector a pesar de la acumulación de situaciones y momentos históricos.
October 9, 2019
Fascinating and deeply moving. This fragmentary examination of tears expertly mixes poetic thought, science, and the author's own relationship to sadness, joy, and crying. Everyone who has ever cried should read this book.
August 6, 2019
The book is a lachrymatory for the author's tears. It's written in short bursts containing poignant memories, details and facts. Honestly, I loved this book so much I'm not sure what to say about it.
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