How to Do Things with Tears is a book brought forth by the Sighted Singer, the poet who holds the central position in Allen Grossman’s newest work. “This is a HOW-TO book,” Grossman explains. “The heroic singer of tradition is blind. A NEW singer in this present must be sighted. In this book the poet intends to say something, insofar as a poet can, about the common sadness of living and dying in the world.” Like the blind bard of old, Grossman’s Sighted Singer conjures visions both high and low, in mythopoeic resonances that excite the sorrows and the laughter of the gods and men.