Tear Poembook

TEAR TREASURY POEMS

Clare Whistler

TEAR TREASURY POEMS

Clare Whistler

Leverhulme Artist in Residence Centre for the History of Emotions Queen Mary University of London 2014

With thanks to Fay Bound Alberti, Katherine Angel, Stephen Clark, Thomas Dixon, Jules Evans, Adrian Garvey, Laura Gwynne, Rhodri Hayward, Hetta Howes, Jane Mackelworth, Chris Millard, Paul Roberts, Chris Sparks, Sigridur Erla Gudmundsdottir, Daniel Wildman, Jennifer Wallis, Emma Yates, Juan Manuel Zoragoza The ‘found’ poems in this Tear Treasury have been formed purely from words spoken by the participants during interview.

I asked them to imagine a receptacle for all their precious tears in their own tear bottle, what would it be made of… gold or gossamer dew or music a kiss or a colour velvet or cold rain leaves or books skin or sea laughter or food childhood or…

Tear Bottles are also known as tear vials, tear catchers, lachrymatories, unguentarium They were common in the first centuries A.D. Small, tear shaped bottles were placed as tributes beside tombs and were believed to hold the tears of the mourners.

The first poem is taken from an interview about unguentaria with Dr Paul Roberts, Curator, Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum.

unguentaria

glass blown glass colossal potteries made tiny bottles spindle necked, ovoid bodied, long footed for perfume to anoint the dead they were buried with their contents flattening into triangular shapes though always a long neck an elongated tear and a tear contained it’s possible no one can say no bottles were also bird-shaped break beak or tail to open shells, shoes, snails and little boats even dates in amber and the heads of gods and men glass unguentarium aqua green and yellow stoppered with cork or wax the perfume inside expensive refined not distilled thousands in a store room

this is the first century Bay of Naples for roses, lilies, violets from Eygpt and the east bergamot, cinnamon, cloves perfumiers are named on Pompeii’s wall first find in an abandoned room painfully thin and broken so easily smashed the wall of the vase less than a millimetre through beautiful blue glass in fragments grave goods

tear bottle 1

I veer towards a book the same book a catalogue not diary various handwriting over years hard-backed dark blue and kept hidden covered in music parts falling off text messages that are weird to save I love you and always will in pencil skin might be interesting that feeling of tears

tear bottle 2

made of love darker than at first sense consoling a holding some deep memory crying with dry eyes a twist of two different things crystal sharp and some kind of light

tear bottle 3

I take things out of boxes but need boxes to put them back in I think mine would be a perfect cube in glass all of a piece and hollow it would fill up inside it would just fill up with tears I take things out of boxes but need boxes to put them back in when crying my eyes can’t hide I feel it in the back of my throat when I can’t find the metaphor tears have a malleable quality I take things out of boxes but need boxes to put them back in and the tears in my cube would be a way to measure the truth of the past as aspiration the doubt to make one think I take things out of boxes my perfect join-less cube I need boxes to put them back in you can’t get inside my perfect glass cube except those tears just filling up filling up

tear bottle 4

I would not like a tear bottle you shed your tears, get wet don’t carry your tears or they go under your skin feel the tears of pain and joy it is difficult not to be touched It is tragic to lose the ability to cry For survival you need to shed tears feel the wetness of what changes when you cry you are not losing the memory you come to terms with certain things

tear bottle 5

I like the idea of something natural a flower or a plant to put a tear on a leaf or flower is not made for that it can age and decay itself when you leave flowers on a grave they are gone, they’re gone its nice, quite things passing and returning to other states greeny leaves

tear bottle 6

I would have a pouch made with puffs of clouds lined in ivory silk and stitched with green grass secured by secret embroidery and undone just by intention I don’t know how it would not get wet though the tears would be droplets frozen in time not hard or ice important that they don’t fall out important to hold them in

tear bottle 7

to be made of music and capture the abstract and mysterious to be made of music and capture music emotions to be made of music and capture reliable music tears and leaves, branches, blossom spring leaves spring branches spring blossom like a young child temporary and Elgar blossom and branches white, pink and red Kentish blossom white, pink and red

tear bottle 8

not really a receptacle

a stream to carry away tears a purging, a cleansing

to trickle away in a wood quietly full of flowers a secret place

not rushing slow and trickily quite clean

a rushing one would be too desolate

crying would be nice if it was next to a stream

tear bottle 9

over mountains and dark stones over small rivers comes bright green moss put your nose there smell take water through your mouth ice it tastes a little like earth if I could I would keep all my things in a holder made of green moss

tear bottle 10

did anyone else say glass thin glass like the stamen of a flower an amphora teardrop slightly blue fragile it can’t be held the merest knock and it would break resiliently vulnerable the tears are everyone’s shared stories shared tears to help each other through the suffering no stopper or lid it’s always open

tear bottle 11

( maybe if I cry enough I’ll be empty ) I want a dark secretive thick metal repository made of dark rough unfinished pottery to hide in the dark where I can’t see them my secret shame tears

I want a recyclable repository for everyday weeping glass recyclable test tube recyclable functional wouldn’t keep them they’re recyclable

I want a pure gold repository for precious tears pure gold and clear chemistry bottle shaped pure gold tears for new kids being born really pure gold a way to keep and display to fill an ornate spice rack cabinet with decorated shelves in beautiful wood arranged chronologically I will need more and more pure gold tears

tear bottle 12

my tear bottle is memory to keep the memory alive within you it doesn’t have boundaries or only half-imagined like a blanket with a few dark spots a night sky but laid out within and inside you to hold on to something in your memory in the way only certain bits come to light

tear bottle 13

if I had a receptacle I want to be able to see the tears an old glass bottle that has had tears in before see through it would be old and connected to the past I want to be able to see the tears I am driven by the image pendant not just my tears but others tears I or others could wear it if I had a receptacle I want to be able to see the tears droplet

tear bottle 14

oh I tend to think of things like flowers something ephemeral or obviously not delicate but able to endure the delicacy of spring flowers not peonies and roses not summery very dark blue hyacinths in lush pre raphaelite paintings violet and dark green there is a wateryness about them not sunshine

tear bottle 15

I saw blue glass one time when I was in where was I in Morocco the most beautiful vivid blue I could remember I was a child on holiday it was a thing you buy which would look out of place once you got home on the beautiful vivid blue I think there was a design arabic script in lead or paint I remember the blue put up by a window so the sun shone through whenever I see a lovely blue like the blue of the sky I always think of that glass

tear bottle 16

a silence what springs to mind is very fine scarves of fine wool more holes than full a thought round like a ball though not too small sort of purple light pale fuchsia bright a hovering

tear bottle 17

well if I could if I can if I can make my own I would choose stories I can’t describe I think it must be deep it would be warm but a bit scary stories I don’t know how deep I don’t know how I haven’t the words though the words of the stories would all be the lines of a spider’s web

Š Clare Whistler 2014 www.clarewhistler.co.uk

Design by Raphael Whittle Printed and bound by Elephant Print Ltd

TEAR TREASURY POEMS

Clare Whistler Leverhulme Artist in Residence Centre for the History of Emotions Queen Mary University of London 2014