Broken Hearts... Healing:
Young Poets Speak Out
on Divorce
Tom Worthen, Ph.D., editor
illus. Kyle Hernandez
Poet Tree Press
Paperback
June 2001
234 pages

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The poignant poems collected in Broken Hearts... Healing ought to be required reading for every couple contemplating ending their marriage, and should certainly be used to help children from broken families know that they are not alone in their hurting. Ruthlessly honest and heartbreaking, the poems are outpourings of grief and resignation from children of divorced parents. The poets, ranging in ages from nine to eighteen, capture the raw emotions that divorce wrings out of the children it affects. Illustrations by third-grade Utah artist Kyle Hernandez add to the sense of innocence lost too soon.

I am a worried kid whose parents are divorced/
I constantly wonder if what I'm doing is best for me/
I hear the tortured cries from within my own body and soul/
I see that I'm a nuclear explosion of misery and sorrow/
I want for all of the pain to end now/
I am a worried kid whose parents are divorced
   (fragment from "I Am" by Andrew, Age 12)

Tom Worthen's Ph.D. in Interpersonal Communication makes him a likely choice for editor of such a book. His credentials as a man trying to be "the best divorced dad he can be" to his three children makes him the perfect choice. In his "foreword for parents," Worthen says

Divorce is a process. In the legal context it is a single event. To the individuals involved, divorce is a continuing cycle of love, hate, pain, fear and endless other emotions...I found that what often makes divorce most devastating is how the parents act and react toward each other and the children.

"Divorce sucks." Having your parents end their marriage changes your whole world. But you are not alone.

The parents went on with their lives,/
The child grew with tears in her eyes./
Eleven years later and they don't care,/
That the child feels like they're never there./
The parents never knew,/
That the child was broken in two.
   (fragment from "The Child" by Nikki, Age 13)