Milk and Honey

🌻Some thoughts on Rupi Kaur🌻
So I just finished both of Kaur's books (Milk and Honey; The Sun and Her Flowers).
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Overall, I'm just unimpressed with her work and don’t understand a lot of the hype surrounding her books-- which I'm sure people would gasp at. But the thing is, this doesn't feel like poetry, and I'll tell you why.
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This is supposed to be poetry and not prose, but it seems to be only classified as poetry because of the rhythm and enjambment. And that, to me, isn't enough to make it poetry (on paper that is-- performed this would be very effective content).
To me it seems that when you decide to write poetry, you're sacrificing the telling and replacing it with the showing, if that makes sense. And Kaur wants to have her cake and eat it too, that is, have the rhythm of poetry without having to use the concrete images that I think poetry requires.
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That's not to say that her content isn't valid or "good," but if I were to ask someone who their favorite poet was and they were to reply with Rupi Kaur, I would give some more suggestions and hope that they don't think Kaur is the be all end all of contemporary poetry.
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And don't get me wrong, there are contemporary poets who miss the mark completely to me for being TOO abstract with their concrete images to the point where I'm just lost and expecting someone to be like "Well that's the POINT. You're supposed to feel lost. The author wants to convey the feeling of being lost."
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Kaur, to reiterate my point, actually HAS to plop in concrete images every 20 or so lines because she runs the risk of losing her reader in her, albeit hypnotic, pep-talky rant. Her hyper-enjambed style compels one to just ZOOM through her books, with the occasional concrete image there to slow you back down.

Really, there's no accounting for people's taste in poetry ... so I'll put the only part of my review that should really matter up front: namely, that I recommend you leaf through this collection and sample a few pages before you commit to anything (though I strongly recommend a visit to your library if you do).

I will also say towards the top that there were a few very striking, impactful selections included, though most seemed intended for people outside my demographic. I will also mention that I liked the illustrations that accompanied many of the poems - the simple, sketchy style worked well, I thought.

I gave the first dozen or so selections two or three read throughs, trying to let them unfold and refine their message, I reviewed the words, the line breaks, the title-of-poem-as-key-to-meaning titles, looking for those little bonuses you usually find, rewards of deeper understanding for putting in the extra work... but they were few and slow to reveal themselves.

Like I said before, there's no accounting for taste in poetry and there's no rule that a poem must be a certain way; rhyming or metre or subject matter are all subject to the artist's whim. By all means, explore the limits and break the rules; there's really no medium better suited to it. But for all the bending-to-breaking of rules, I don't know, I still want it to seem like that there was a plan, like each word was puzzled over, like each word is the only one that would fit. A good portion of the pages in here felt like they could've just been a facebook post or a tweet, left just as much impression, and were just as quickly moved past.

I'm sure there are plenty of people out there for whom this offering of milk and honey will be exactly what they want and need. I'm sure there are numerous folks for whom the cycle of pain, dating, break-up, healing will feel familiar, who will see a mirror of themselves in this book, and who will maybe even learn and grow from it. I'm sure those people are out there, so, again, give a few selections a preview read on the chance that you are one of those people ... I, sadly, was not.