My first poetry with Rupi Kaur (Milk and Honey Review)

Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Published: 4th of November 2014
Length: 208 Pages
Genre: Collection of Poetry and Prose
Price: 11,49€ on Amazon

Review
Let me tell you the story of how I got to know the work of Rupi Kaur. I am actually not a big fan of poetry, at least not of the stuff we had to read and analyze at school. I guess not everyone liked to unpack a Sonett and its multiple layers of meaning, especially when it’s about something you are not interested in at all. So when a pen pal of mine, actually recommend Kaur’s work to me, in a totally different context and I got to read some of her poems, I was quite surprised that I was enjoying it. The friend suggested using her poems and illustration to get inspired for my own works of art, mostly illustrations too. So the intention was not even to get me into poetry, but maybe it kinda did?

But then, in an effort to find out more about this artist who got me interested in reading poems, I found out that not everyone was enjoying what she wrote, quite the contrary. Many people called her a wanna be-, Instagram- or tumblr poet, they were saying that her work seemed lazy and not quite thoughtful. People were pointing out that some of her work would be considered statements, might have even been Twitter posts, but not art. Which really got me thinking: what is art and who can decide on the definition? (There are famous people in Germany I know of whose whole art persona is based on sharing their own tweets on different platforms, it might not be poetry, so maybe to be the best example, but I would say it could be art, modern art so to speak.) That’s why I really wanted to write this review because I guess if I would not have been reading some of her poems before, hearing and reading all these negative things about Kaur’s might have been the point where I would have stopped researching. I might not even have bought the books I already put in my online shopping card. But glad I didn’t, I gave this artist a chance and I can’t say that I am regretting it.

I am not an expert on this field obviously and I don’t try to discredit the people who gave their very negative opinions on Kaur’s work, but I want to try and give another perspective on the topic. Because I think, what some people might actively or subconsciously have done was gatekeeping and I think in its essence, that was wrong. Comparing Kaur’s work with what I knew from schools, definitely showed some differences. Most of her poems are quite short and as I said, their meaning can be understood easily. The themes of her poetry surround around womanhood, abuse, family and relationships and you can say they feel like very meaningful quotes. The most popular one, which her first book is named after is “Milk and Honey”:

The messages of this poem seems to be: people who have been hurt, try not to hurt others because they don’t want anyone else to feel the pain, they felt. It’s said with a more visual language and emphasizes with a not quite fitting illustration, to which we get in a moment, but you get a general idea. There is no second or third layer behind it, which some people might consider lazy or consciously vague so that more people can relate to it. But what exactly would be the problem with that?
Kaurs work in her first book feels very much like a sort of theraphy session for herself and the reader, where you get lead through diffrent stages from “the hurting”, over “the loving”, to “the breaking” and in the end “the healing”. Writing down those maningful quote-like and longer poems, seemed to have helped her deal with certain things that might have happend to her. And it did help me feel understood somewhat too. Since I can’t believe Kaur only did that to become famous, I want to ask again: what exactly would be the problem with that? If she was helping herself and others with her words, is that not the purest form of art?

I said the illustration was not quite fitting, not because I wanted to critique her art style, but because I think a different imagine might have emphasized the message a little bit more. Her Illustration is general, seem to be what people like to complain about the second most though, also calling it lazy. I feel like that’s very subjective like the whole thing might be because I actually really like the art style Kaur used. Just because it’s not shaded or colored, because the ends of the lines don’t connect to each other all the time, it still has something very interesting to it, that I really enjoy. I actually even tried to recreate that, which is not as easy as it might seem. People also like to point out that it feels like the illustrations are only there to fill the pages, make the book seem fuller, they don’t really see it as part of the poem, which I find strange. I see them, the illustrations and the poems, as a connected piece of art. Like in this example:

It’s one of her shorter poems, which again can be understood very easily but with the scorpion she choose to put on that specific page, it might tell a bigger different story. I see it as a nod to the fable of the scorpion and the frog, which goes something like this: A scorpion asks a frog if he can ride on his back to get from one side of the river to the other side. The frog asks “Why should I risk getting stung by you?” to which the scorpion answers “Why should I sting you on the river, if it would mean that we both drown?”. The frog sees the logic in that and decides to help the scorpion, but halfway over the river, the scorpion goes against his word and stings the frog. With his last dying breath, the frog asks the scorpion why he did that and doomed them both, and the scorpion answers “It’s just my nature”. So both the poem and the story play with the idea of people making bad decisions, hurting themselves and others in the process. But Kaur’s poems seem to condemn the actions more, going against the idea of “It’s just my nature” whereas the fable kinda leaves that more open to interpretation. With that in mind, I don’t think Kaur just put random art on the page to fill up her book, she did it because it was part of the art she wanted to create and maybe the message she wanted to sent.

Final Thoughts
So, all in all, I would say art is a very subjective thing, so don’t let other people tell you that something you enjoy is bad and always try to make up your own mind. From what I understand, Rupi Kaur’s work might be considered Level 1 poetry: fun to read, easy to understand, and aesthetically pleasing. It might not be comparable to Level 5 or Level 10 poerty, but that does not mean it’s not good or not poetry at all. So this might be a good book to get you started on poems in general, especially if you like the topics mentioned. It might get you interested in this form of art and that’s never wrong.

Greetings and good wishes
The Mad Hattress