When the Heart Breaks: A Journey Through Requited and Unrequited Love by David Whyte
An Audiobook Review
David Whyte is my favorite contemporary poet — perhaps even my favorite poet. His work is so rich and deep yet simple and elegant. He eloquently and lyrically expresses the spiritual essence that threads through all of us. Every time I read his work I am absolutely captivated. It touches the deepest, innermost place of my being and it speaks to me like nothing else I’ve ever read. I look to him with gratefulness and reverence. His work is sublime.
This particular collection is an audiobook, or rather a recording of one of his speaking engagements. He’s not reading from a book — he’s talking to an audience. It consists of him telling stories and reading some of his poems that were inspired by his intriguing life experiences. He is an enthralling and entertaining storyteller and while I had read his poems many times and had also heard him read his poems many times, I’d never heard him speak in such a conversational manner. I also didn’t expect it to be so humorous. I had a few good belly laughs in addition to a good amount of deep philosophical pondering and moments of sheer adoration for his eloquence and ability to portray the most tender and vulnerable aspects of human life — the truest parts of our being.
I especially enjoyed his description of visiting the museum which houses some of Vincent Van Gogh’s most famous paintings. He said that he was intensely impressed by Van Gogh’s self portraits in that there was no self-pity in them at all. He described the paintings as “a man looking out at life at these increasingly fierce thresholds.” And as you come to the most well-known portrait of him with the bandage around his head after he had cut his ear off, Whyte says, “The feeling is just: this is what you look like when you go a little too far and cut your ear off...And then you put it in a package and send it to a woman you’re interested in…We’ve all done the equivalent metaphorically!” And David Whyte laughs along with the audience. There is often a kind of humor in a deep truth. Yes, I understand the feeling. From here he talks about the experience of love and how it’s always unrequited because we never receive it back in exactly the same way we give it. He really delves into this topic and he does so with so much humbleness and wisdom. I really felt the truth of this — that real, deep down knowing that doesn’t often come to the surface in everyday existence. Especially during these turbulent times when nearly everything about regular life has been stripped away, those deep down places inside ourselves are really all we’re left with — and perhaps all that really every matters anyway.
In addition to his clever and highly engaging story-telling, he also reads several of his poems and they feel that much more poignant given the background information he shares about them. I love that he reads them multiple times, often repeating stanzas or lines. Poetry is meant to be a slow digestion. His poems definitely warrant multiple and slow reads. If you’ve never read any work by David Whyte, I urge you to check him out. He is very close to my heart and I strive to emulate his raw and courageous eloquence in my own work. He’s a powerful speaker as well, and I love to hear him read his work. I felt very emotionally stirred while listening and I found it to be a rich experience of spiritual fulfillment. If any of this sounds appealing to you, please don’t hesitate to further explore David Whyte’s impressive body of work.
Jacqueline Ann 2020
