It starts with the breakdown; twenty years together. It ends breaking free, into new life.

Poet Tamara Mendelson charts her divorce cycle in Divorce Poetry: Breaking Free, A Soul-Healing Journey Through the Five Stages of Divorce. She shares her raw emotions and bitter truths learned, such as the meaning of "forever."

From breaking down to breaking free, each of the five sections includes poetry intended for people going through their own emotional tidal waves.

Mendelson never expected to divorce. What was to last forever, lasted seventeen years. Rather than settling for a...