MILK AND HONEY BY RUPI KAUR (2014)

ABOUT THE POET

When she was five, her mother handed her a paintbrush and said, “draw your heart out.” Rupi Kaur views her life as an exploration of that artistic journey. Through her poetry and illustrations, she engages with love, loss, trauma, healing and femininity. For Rupi, writing has always been a collective experience. At the age of seventeen she began sharing her work. The stage was her first love and spoken word is where she found her voice. Rupi pursued her love for language by studying rhetoric at the University of Waterloo. She began working on her first collection milk and honey, which eventually became a New York Times bestseller. Rupi’s passion is expression. For her that expression takes many forms. Her photography and art direction are brought to various spaces around the world and her poetry and prose are breaking international boundaries.

Review

Let me be a little honest here: I'm not someone who's used to reading or writing poetry that's sensual in nature. So I was putting off reading this book, because I felt that I wouldn't be able to appreciate it properly. But exploring new forms of poetry and storytelling can always widen our perspective. And this has been very much the case with milk and honey.

I've tried to identify a stanza that can encapsulate the essence of this collection. It would be:

 i am a museum full of art

 but you had your eyes shut

I have chosen this couplet because this collection seems to capture all emotions, from visceral to muted. From self-love, lust, sexual assault, infidelity, and feminism, Kaur provides a poetically raw account of her inner turmoil with love and loss, along with some touching reflections on self-acceptance and sisterhood. I've particularly enjoyed her writing style, as she is one of the poets who can say a million heart touching things in just a few words. Plus, her decision to use hand-drawn graphics and simple typography without using any punctuation or capital letters. This adds a sense of raw authenticity to the collection, because as a reader, I felt like I was peeking into Kaur's personal diary. I like how beautifully she talks about pleasure and loving one's body. As someone who has always been a little uncomfortable with exploring sexual desires and embracing flaws, her words have been really insightful and empowering. The overall thematic narrative has been pretty strong in this collection, as the book starts with a sharp poetic commentary on sexual assault, but it goes on to reflect upon Kaur's experience with love and heartbreak. The last few poems take an optimistic turn with her reflections on her Sikh ethnicity, self-love, and sisterhood. I expected to read dark poetry about the unfortunate reality of womanhood in the modern world, but this book is more than that. It is a journey of heartbreak and healing in its rawest, most relatable form.

I would love to recommend this book to those who want to read poetry for the first time.

Raw, healing, and memorable, I would rate this collection 4.5/5.