The Trees The Trees

by Heather Christle

In THE TREES THE TREES, the follow-up to Heather Christle's acclaimed first collection, THE DIFFICULT FARM, each new line is a sharp turn toward joy and heartbreak, and each poem unfolds like a bat through the wild meaninglessness of the world.

Genres: Poetry, Literary Fiction

60 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2011

About the author

Heather 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.

Reviews

[Emmanuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

my friend and i have a ritual of drinking red wine and reading poetry to each other. entire books swallowed in one sitting. no bathroom breaks, although some pausing for discussion of boys and breakdowns and breakthroughs are allowed. this wonderful collection is just like that moment you part from someone you love, even just for the night, and in walking away you glance backward and offer some kind of gesture, perhaps a wave or a more elaborate salute of some kind, even if they don't see, and it's that reassuring feeling that all things end, but this thing isn't ending right now, that there will be another episode of spilled wine and words. yeah. this book is kind of like that.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is the single best book of poetry I have ever read in my life. Heather Christle is the voice inside my head while I'm dreaming. I love her subjects--how effortlessly she fuses the natural world with technology in a way that won't feel dated no matter how far into the future people are reading it. Reading this was like someone put a blood pressure cuff around my heart, squeezed it as tightly as they could and then all of the air rushed out at once in a long hiss and I could feel everything. Strongly considering tattooing the complete text all over my entire body so I never leave home without it.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good poems, they're kind of funny and so so brilliant! Heather Christle is making me want to write poetry again. It's been forever since I felt this way.

[Sian Lile-Pastore · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know how to write about poetry, so i'll just say that this was beautiful and reminded me of Twin Peaks somehow. Maybe it was all the trees.

My favourite poem I think is 'Soup is one form of salt water'
I like that it says
'I am making borscht [.....]
my hands are bright pink like i have been applauding you for hours my love for you is louder than I know
[...]
I must use starfish to scrub at my hands.'

[tee · Rating 4 out of 5]

a majority of these poems were so wonderful that i have loved just too many too deeply to call only some as favorites

'i’d like to jet-ski / straight out of this life / because right now i am / way attached to real things like for instance / people / how they are all so tender / how they love to just go walk around / and some of them are / wearing pink now / and it hurts me / and they / bathe their dogs'

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

"what distinguishes my face from a tree is the total lack of commentary/ as in that tree loves you/ honestly loves you/ i'm the noisy one who has to say it"

UGH

[emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

like those weird dreams where things make half sense, but not really. leaves me sitting here like, “k but why”

[Pau · Rating 5 out of 5]

wow this is probable one of the best poetry collections i’ve ever read..!

[Tom Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

i think it's good but sadly i just don't get poetry

[TinHouseBooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elizabeth Pusack (Intern, Tin House Magazine): Heather Christle’s The Trees the Trees. I just read a review likening these poems to little mazes! The reviewer was talking about shape and staging, but Heather Christle’s writing does feel like very offbeat problem solving. So many riddles like this one with strange particulars, but particularly familiar cores: “I lost my phone I am using the baby monitor / instead it’s in the flowers nobody’s calling / but I know that someday you will it’s just plan math.” She does this awesome thing which is to offer sweetness and jokes and the sinister all at once! It was so good to hear these in her own voice a couple of times this fall. If she’s ever reading in your town, Go Listen!

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

betoverend vreemd !! niet alle gedichten raakten me evenveel maar het grote aantal mooie zinnen, slimme grapjes (ik heb meerdere keren hardop gelachen) en de hoeveelheid bomen in deze bundel maakten dat allemaal goed

"I'd like to jet-ski straight out of this life / because right now I am way attached to real things / like for instance people / how they are all so tender / how they love to just go walk around / and some of them are wearing pink now / and it hurts me / and they bathe their dogs"

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like this even better than The Difficult Farm, and I liked that a whole lot. Heather Christle is easily one of my favorite poets right now.

[dc · Rating 5 out of 5]

i am re-reading this book AGAIN because it is awesome. i want to tattoo every 5th line on my body.

[Jaime · Rating 5 out of 5]

Each poem is like a little intricate box that you open to find another intricate box, and inside that: another.

[Andrea Janov · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection was interesting. Just not for me. The subtle playing with words and space was interesting at times, yet I just felt listless while making my way through.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a wonderful and strange and inviting and surreal and gauzy little book of poems.

And before you know it we are still here

[helene · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I got so mad when I died”

[Allya Yourish · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I know where I'm going to die/ right here/ in my/ own honest body/ I avoid my body by sleeping" excerpted from Happy Birthday To Me

Heather Christle's work is smart and weird and quirky and lively. She has a habit of putting together small incongruous details so that they build into this teetering, alien world. Her observations are sharp and strange, interwoven with human and sentiment.

The Trees The Trees is a treat to read.

[Jimmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heather is playing 'house' in this book. I don't mean to imply the domesticity, but the pretend, the imagination, the whimsiness, and the playing of roles. Often, like an only child, Heather has to play all the roles herself.

Half-Hedgehog Half-Man
talk to me I said okay said the tree and it
twinkled not like that I said I already know
that talk to me about something new you 
monster it said that was a little better could
we try this I said from a different perspective
so we swapped places I was still the monster
this would be easier if you could see the video
in the video there are all these owls like bang 
bang bang all over the tree which I was now
only that might be clearer in writing because I 
was also still myself half-hedgehog half-man
and that could be hard to communicate visually 
and also my man-jaw was glass

My Enemy
I have a new enemy he is so good-looking here
is a photograph of him in the snow he is in the
snow and so is the photo I put it there because
I hate him and because it is always snowing in
the photograph my enemy is acting like there
are no neighbors but there are always neighbors
they just might be far away he is 100% evil
and good-looking he looks good in his parka
in the snow if you asked he would call it a
helmet all he ever does is lie he does not
breathe or move or glow he is not that kind
of man it is not that kind of snow

Some of these poems work better than others. And it could just be me, but some of the humor is too clever here (on the page), though she makes it work so well when she reads it.

[az · Rating 5 out of 5]

aaaaaa i will always keep screaming

[Gina · Rating 5 out of 5]

i love these poems like fuckin WHAT, they busted my heart up and made her their girl.

[S · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked the project ok but kind of wish it was written for adults.

[Sarah Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Significantly influenced the way I write poetry (and played a huge role in my dgp chapbook).

[Eric M. R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. Wrote a couple of poems inspired by these. Saw her read once in person, it was also fantastic.

[Jamie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I liked bits of this. Mostly I was just annoyed and disappointed by it.

[Charity (Charity's Library)]

This really isnt poetry. This is like a mad libs trying to make sense. But overall this made no sense whatsoever.

[Amanda Ventrudo · Rating 5 out of 5]

absolutely floored by this

[Tori Thurmond · Rating 4 out of 5]

This will always be one of my favorite poetry collections. Every time I read it, I’m inspired to go write! The weirdness is welcoming and fresh.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like Heather Christle's poems are the sort that grow on you over time. They're very bare bones but not at all straightforward. Sometimes, the imagery is a little too surreal and intangible for me to really grasp any significant meaning from. Other times, a couple of lines or an entire poem will knock me out cold with how emotionally loaded it is. On a first reading, this first category ultimately outweighed the second, hence the rating, but that could very well change upon a future reading now that I feel like I have a better grasp on her style. All in all, she's not a poet where I'm instantly jumping to track down everything she's ever written and devour it ravenously, but I definitely wouldn't say no to reading more of her stuff.

Recommended poems: "That Air of Ruthlessness in Spring," "Je M'Appelle Ivan," "And Yet I'm Not a Tree," "Plot the Height and Distance," "Outnumbered," "Aqualung," "Christmas," "Kinds of Weather," "I Know the Air Should Not Contain Me," "Soup Is One Form of Salt Water."

Choice passages:

"all I want is the fish to glow at night / when everyone on earth is trying to reach me / hello / yes / hello / this never happens / yet other events go on and on / the dimming of the moon"

"my body slipped out / and stood beside me / we could not see each other / and assembled our two visions into one / the world was different / because it looked different / and it still likes us / but we don't like it back"

"I arrange my records alphabetically / by the first word / of the first song / and the first word is constantly baby"

"I am leaving every coast / every tide pool / where I was born / and where I dipped my feet in / I am separating clouds from sky / not harmed / not in flames / in the undisclosed heart of my nation"

[Kassy Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd describe this poetry collection as 'delightfully weird.' All the poems are in a square form that I haven't seen anywhere else which lent it a peculiar charm. Christle ranges into absurdism with many of her images. I loved how the book built on itself and how the poems had conversations with each other. At times, however, I felt a bit left out by the sort of 'stream of consciousness' feel to some poems - were these images being cultivated to hint to some sort of unknown awe? At times I felt it was random for the sake of randomness. There are times when this departure from normalcy brought me to pithy places worth exploring. Other times, I just thought, "huh.. that was weird... okay." Overall though, I enjoyed the book!