Paper Crown

I have never before read a book like Paper Crown. In it, Heather Christle opens the doors of her mind as if it is a library where we are welcome to roam so long as we understand that “If pages fall from high / enough they can take down a house.” Seemingly domestic in their sly meditations, always exultant in their view of the natural world, these poems clarify the mind of one fully aware of the fear and despair that dwells in and around us in the midst of our desires whether they be erotic or artistic or the desire to be awed by a stunning book. This is a stunning book. I am stunned. – Jericho Brown
Heather Christle’s Paper Crown renders the precise darts and folds of lyric attention, revealing poetry to be a timekeeping as intimate and exact as that of perfect friendship or the pineal gland: “The click of time saying yes.” – Joyelle McSweeney
Heather Christle’s Paper Crown anticipates times when inner visions match the outer world * Library Journal *
A striking celebration of risk and beauty – Kit Fan * Guardian *
My favourite poet of all time – Paige Lewis

HEATHER CHRISTLE is the author of the literary memoir In the Rhododendrons (2025), The Crying Book (2019), and four poetry collections, including The Trees The Trees (Corsair Poetry, 2019). She is an Associate Professor at Emory University. Her poems have appeared in The Believer, Granta, London Review of Books, The New Yorker, and Poetry.

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