When Kristina Grish found herself suddenly going through a divorce in 2019 after having been married for 12 years, the shock was raw. It was hard to know how to move on.
Grish is a writer by trade, but in her grief, longform writing didn’t seem like the way forward — it was too likely to lead to an extensive rehashing of complicated feelings. One day, she stumbled onto another solution: haiku. Or more specifically: a “f–k you” haiku.
With its three-line, 17 syllable format (5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second, 5 in the third) the formula was something she could stick to. “My entire life had been turned upside-down,” says Grish. “When I tried to digest the whole of what was happening, it was too overwhelming. In small bites, I could make better sense of it.”
Haiku had the added benefit of feeling like a game — “a cross between thinking man’s game and lazy man’s poetry,” wherein many different types of feelings could be explored quickly.
And it helped that the haiku lent themselves easily to sharing with friends or family members. “I loved that I could zap them off to get a laugh or a sense of camaraderie,” says Grish. “People would say, ‘That’s exactly how I felt during my breakup.’ ”
Her new book, “F*ck You Haiku: Little Breakup Poems to Help You Vent, Heal, and Move On” (Tiller Press), is a collection inspired by past breakups and more universal experiences many will relate to (“Your stuff’s in a box/On the front lawn of my house/Covered in bird s–t.”)
The haikus about her ex-husband did not make the final cut; they are co-parenting their young son, and she wants to keep things respectful and amicable.
Grish’s personal favorite is an ode to Swedish Fish, which she would sometimes enjoy for dinner: “Wine and Swedish fish/I shouldn’t call that dinner/Ah f–k it, who cares?”