Bookforum Excerpts Heather Christle's The Crying Book

Bookforum has published an excerpt from poet Heather Christle's new book, The Crying Book (Catapult, 2019). "I suppose some people can weep softly and become more beautiful, but after a real cry, most people are hideous, as if they’ve grown a spare and diseased face beneath the one you know, leaving very little room for the eyes," she writes. More:

To cry or not to cry is sometimes a choice, and no telling which is the better. Not true—if you are alone, or with only one other, cry. To cry with more people present, concludes the International Study of Adult Crying, can lead to a worsening mood, though that may depend on others’ reactions. You can be made to feel ashamed. Most frequently criers report others responding with compassion, or what the study categorizes as “comfort words, comfort arms, and understanding.” If you are alone, comfort arms are still available; you hold yourself together.

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It is fortunate to have a nose. Hard to feel you are too tragic a figure when the tears mix with snot. There is no glamour in honking.

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Find the full excerpt at Bookforum.