We spoke to Christy Merry in the depths of 2021 depths of COVID about her first album, Here For You. It is a very intense and lovely album. But even back then we spoke to her about the book that is about her book that came out earlier this month, Handing You My Heart. (You can get the book locally at Cosmic Coffee and Eat My Words Bookstore in NE Minneapolis, at readings, and online in the merch section of her Bandcamp page.
The book is about love lost and the journey that occurs once that happens. It starts with the loss and The Hole. The imagery is evocative. You can almost feel the warmth of the sun that becomes too hot as it burns through the love of a relationship that is being lost.
We can trace the stages of grief through several of the poems. There’s the anger in In Retrospect that starts…
You feared my leaving.
I’m like a butterfly; I flit from flower to flower.
I will not just sit quietly in your hand,
I will not tuck myself meekly under your wing like a
bird-child.
And there’s the bargaining or acceptance in To Be the Comforter…
I am taking my sadness
bundled in a backpack
10 blocks over
to share with a girl
to let her know she is not alone.
The book reads like a romantic love lost but it could be anything, especially knowing that Christy has lost many people and has had relationships with people who have also experienced loss. As a reader, it is instructive to see how the unwinding of a relationship can impact so many aspects of your psyche and in distance it’s easier to recognize how much we can decide to pick up or set down. The last line on Concern a Blow exemplifies that…
I’m in love with someone who’s as yesterday as yesterday gets
and yesterday keeps seeming farther and farther away.
Mostly Minnesota 