Published: 2012
Author: Beth Griffenhagen
Illustrator: Cynthia Vehslage Meyers
A fabulous collection of poetry for single girls (and ex-single girls)
Every time I sit down to write a review of a book that I’ve just read I wonder what to say and how much information to put in the review. One thing I’ve never thought about including though was where I was when reading the book – does it matter if I was on a train, or on a sofa in the living room or in bed? But I’m going to make an exception (and probably share too much) for Haiku for the Single Girl
I’m not a huge poetry lover, I like it some poems but not others and I would certainly never claim to be an expert in the different forms of poetry. If I’m honest I had to look up what exactly constitutes a Haiku. According to Wikipedia (which as we all know is never wrong) Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry, the English language version of which tends to use three lines of up to seventeen syllables. There’s other criteria as well, but that’s the general idea, or at least all I needed to know to better understand the poems.
Published here in the UK by Canongate in August, Beth Griffenhagen’s collection of 72 short poems is a fantastically funny look at the single life. Some of the haikus look at the frustration of being single with limited options:
I am convinced that
All available men are
Somehow damaged goods.
Others celebrate the joys of being answerable to no-one and being able to enjoy the single life:
I smile to myself
Because I have a secret:
My time is my own.
There’s every aspect of singledom in between from laughing at ex-boyfriends who are now less than desirable to fending off a mother’s questioning about still liking boys.
The poems are perfectly complimented by Cynthia Vehslage Meyers’s illustrations. Each one has the ability to raise a smile without even reading the accompanying haiku but put together they are a perfect piece of entertainment.
This is a perfect gift for a single friend, or a friend who used to be single, or a friend who wishes she was still single and is an ideal book to dip in and out of. Or as I would thoroughly recommend to read when lying in a long, warm bubble bath with candles burning and a large glass of wine on the side.