An Experiential Review on “milk and honey” by Rupi Kaur
“if I knew what / safety looked like / I would have spent / less time falling into / arms that were not” - Rupi Kaur, milk and honey
Rupi Kaur, author of milk and honey
Prior to purchasing and reading milk and honey, I had heard a plethora of positive things about this book from friends of mine.
“That book ripped me to shreds.”
“It depressed me.”
Okay, so maybe not the most positive things, but allow me to give more context about their words. milk and honey ripped my friends to shreds and aided in piecing their broken hearts together. It depressed them, but allowed reflection and light to enter their spirit in a time of healing.
The format of the first book I reviewed — truths. and freedom. (which you can read here) — was similar to milk and honey. I loved that book so much I knew I had to read the work that has crowned its author the “Queen of Instapoetry.”
Self-published by Kaur in 2014 during her time at the University of Waterloo, milk and honey is a collection of poetry split into four chapters containing works straight from her heart.
Hell, just the fact that Kaur self-published her own book while attending university makes me question everything I did during my time in college (frankly, I did not have time to publish anything because I was incredibly busy, but you get the gist). The accomplishment on its own is worth more than a $100,000 piece of paper.
What is beautiful about this book is that it showcases the power of words. Kaur is straight to the point with her poetry. It doesn’t take her long-winded stanzas and an elite vocabulary to rip your spirit to bits. Her emotions flowingly pour on to the pages in the forms of gems and as you turn each page, each jewel hits you. Cutting deeper into your core.
milk and honey is powerful for a multitude of reasons, but these five stuck out to me:
1. It challenges what poetry looks like. By taking advantage of the lack of attention span human beings have due to today’s technology (I.e. instagram), Kaur’s poems rarely leave a length that can fit a 1x1 image. They are short, they are powerful, and they leave room for reflection. I am not saying that this hasn’t been done before, because it absolutely has, but Kaur’s use of social media allowed the format to go mainstream.
Image provided by Rupi Kaur's instagram account
2. It creates visual art through the use of words and sketches. Not only is Kaur a poet, but she also fills her poetry with beautiful drawings that minimally compliment her works.
3. It showcases intersectional feminism. Kaur is an educated, Canadian, woman of color who acknowledges both what hinders her and her privileges simultaneously throughout her journey of milk and honey. She does not present herself to be better than anyone else.
Image provided by Rupi Kaur's instagram account
4. It is not a manifestation of perfection and it doesn’t try to be. Kaur is vulnerable in her flaws. She is unafraid to showcase her weakness, and she does not attempt to put up a facade that throughout all of this she was able to keep herself together. Her “blood sweat and tears / of twenty-one years” floods her poetry fluidly and you read it page by page.
5. It showcases how trauma changes you. The book’s four parts showcase how the initial impact of someone’s initial decisions and actions can shape the person whois targeted. Kaur’s experiences flow throughout her entire book, and whether she’s healed from them or not, it shows how those experieces have shaped her into the woman she’s become.
Image provided by Rupi Kaur's instagram account
One particular poem titled “selfish” hit me in my spirit so heavily I reflected and cried for an hour. Kaur speaks particularly on selfish people and their part in relationships. She writes an exchange between a person in pain speaking to the one person causing said pain:
Image provided by Rupi Kaur's instagram account
The entire poem wrecked me simply because I had one specific period in my collegiate years where this situation happened to me down to the sentence.
It was second semester of my freshman year and I had been introduced to him through a mutual friend. He was a recent graduate and videographer. It seemed like he had his shit together. We exchanged information. He showed an immediate interest in me, and I in him.
The issue was that my interest in him was more rooted in a relationship, while his was rooted in intrigue. He told me specifically he had “never been with a black girl.”
This should have been my first warning.
We saw each other until he got bored for the most part, and while I tried to push our relationship further, he pushed further inside and away from me until he left the country for his birthday, and left our conversations out there with him.
I didn’t hear from him until my mentor died and he told me “he was there for me.”
He did not touch me again until he attempted to grab my locs and ask if “I could help him with his hair.”
He was the selfish Kaur was speaking about. The people who feel they can have their way with others without consequences. The people who don’t think about how their decisions may affect someone else. I know I have been this person before, and I will always strive to be selfless because I’d rather bring people joy than pain.
He only brought pain.
I recommend milk and honey to anyone that is needing words of healing. I hope that they can have an experience like I did with one of Kaur’s poems or this book in general. I know this book inspired me to put my work out to the world simply because I know someone may need it.
You can purchase a copy of milk and honey on Amazon. For more information about Rupi Kaur, visit www.rupikaur.com
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