When She Leaves Me: A Story Told in Poems

by Benjamin Gorman

In his debut collection, Gorman relays the story of a shocking dissolution of two decades of marriage and his long crawl back to hope. Unflinching, unflattering, stunned and angry and selfish and ultimately generous, the poetry is aimed at readers open to empathy who can nourish their souls on a journey of healing.

Genres: Poetry

136 pages, Hardcover

Published November 24, 2020

About the author

Benjamin Gorman is a high school English teacher. He lives in Independence, Oregon with his partner, bibliophile and guillotine aficionado Chrystal. His first novel was The Sum of Our Gods, followed by Corporate High School, then The Digital Storm, then The Convention of Fiends, Book 1: Don’t Read This Book, and, most recently, The Convention of Fiends, Book 2: You Were Warned. He's also the author of two poetry collections, When She Leaves Me and This Uneven Universe. He believes in human beings and the power of their stories. He places his confidence in his students and the world they will choose to create if given the chance.

For a much more extensive biography, click here!

Reviews

[Karen Eisenbrey]

This little book of poetry was a pleasant surprise. I put off reading it because I do not trust poetry and I am wary of personal writing. Would this collection of poems about a bad breakup turn out to be a misery memoir in verse? But I had read a few of the poems already and found them more bracing than angsty, so I decided to dive in.

The poet uses a variety of poetic forms and clever literary allusions, which helped hold my interest, as did the general brevity of each piece. The poems were written while the breakup was happening and demonstrate all the stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, etc. There are moments of bleak humor and pale hope. Neither the poet nor his ex comes off as entirely the bad guy, but as messy human beings who screwed up in various ways. In the end, this book exists as warning and advice to other couples for whom it might not be too late, either to get out before they’ve invested years, or to honestly heal what is not yet irreparably broken.

[Ms. Goodbooks]

I got to know my friend Ben and share in his suffering and loss through these poems. I also got to revisit, process and heal my own pain through these poems, because even though this situations are different, I saw my own suffering in many of these verses. It was a cathartic read filled with honesty and depth. I’m better, more hopeful and less ashamed, for it.

[Chrystal]

Anyone who has ever experienced heartbreak will be able to relate to these poems. The author is achingly honest, vulnerable, and not afraid to share his own flaws. This is the story of both the loss, and the discovery, of the authentic self after a life-changing event.

[Matt]

An excellent poet
Displaying sweet English skill
and deep emotion

[Cat]

I’ll begin with a minor gripe: this cover design gives me serious ick. I still gave it the benefit of the doubt though and read it front to back, disappointed to have my initial impressions confirmed.

For me, a book that is clearly someone just publicly saying their feelings because they felt like publicly saying their feelings is no issue. I enjoy simply sitting around in someone else’s head every once in a while, and I think stewing in a random stranger’s pain can be a valuable pastime. I kind of just didn’t like this though. It made me uncomfy and a little angry at the narrator.

As an exploration of a person’s feelings, I found this book generally uninteresting. The author’s wife wants to get divorced, and he’s sad and resentful and seems to hate her for it. That’s kinda it. That’s the whole book. He makes no real attempts in the writing to understand her point of view or even describe any specific scenes from their relationship. He definitely starts in one emotion and ends up in a slightly different one by the end, going from wishing she would stay to believing she is an empty and cruel person, but you don’t get a sense of any meaningful growth happening within his character in the narrative. Once he’s decided he wants to move on, he imagines a theoretical woman he could be in a relationship with in the future. At one point, he describes the imaginary woman as “a different version” of his ex-wife. Neither his real ex-wife nor his imaginary new girlfriend are ever described has having any characteristics other than either wanting him or not wanting him. It appears that is the only lens this man is capable of seeing women through, at least at the time of composing these poems.

There were a few highlights still. For example, I found these quotes quite insightful: “This is the story of the choice to tell this story” and “It’s not quite gaslighting if it’s unintentional but there is a degree of obliviousness that’s dangerous to others’ sanity.” I also loved the super meta bits where he is questioning whether or not he should publish. He says that many people told him that he should keep this poetry private and to himself, but he decided not to essentially because he was lonely. That’s just real.

This stanza from his poem “Obligation” really sums up for me the vibes and feels of the entire book:

I really ought to
interrogate this
compulsion to
broadcast my
most private
pain even
when it
reveals me
to be as unlovable
as I feel