Rupi Kaur, author of the New York Times bestselling poetry book Milk and Honey, recently released her new book, The Sun and Her Flowers. Kaur’s new book deals with many of the same themes of her last book, like love and loss — and femininity at its root. The book is broken up into five different chapters that can be read alone or in succession: “Wilting,” “Falling,” “Rooting,” “Rising” and “Blooming.”
Kaur has managed to do what not many poets have done in the past thirty years; she’s found notable fame. It’s because she’s able to make her poetry accessible to the masses through relatability, and her use of social media to promote her work is shaking up the publishing world.
Kaur has received criticism for that very reason, though. Critics have called her poetry formulaic and generic, but I disagree. Kaur is writing for her audience: social-media savvy young women. Her poems tend to be only a few lines, but they pack a punch that get young women talking about and sharing her poetry.
For example, one of her newest poems from her book, “You were mine / and my life was full / you are no longer mine / and my life / is full,” is four lines with no sort of punctuation, but it works because it’s heartfelt and relatable.
Critics have given Kaur a tough time because they think of her poetry as too generic or that she panders to her audience, and maybe she does. But, I can’t help but find this idea slightly sexist. It’s as if because she is writing to a young woman, it then becomes less of an art form, and more of just ‘silly’ writing, as if writing about women’s ordinary lives can’t constitute as art. Kaur’s writing is painfully real and provocative. She doesn’t shy away from the hardships of being a woman of color. Kaur has many poems about her mother and her life as an immigrant. (“Leaving her country / was not easy for my mother / i still catch her searching for it / in foreign films / and the international food aisle.”)
Kaur may not be the only person in the world with immigrant parents, but that doesn’t make her feelings any less valid or relatable. The most famous poets of all time, including Poe, Whitman and Dickinson, all wrote about love and loss because it’s what connects us as people.
Rupi Kaur’s first book, Milk and Honey, was self-published, and she used her social media platforms to promote her poetry. She created a way to make her art accessible to the masses, yet the mere act of putting it on social media somehow lessens her credibility as a writer in some people’s eyes. The reality is that social media is our newest platform for art. It’s how we share, create, and inform. Kaur has found a way to touch the lives of women across the globe. Shouldn’t that be enough to see her poetry for what it is — beautifully tragic and poignantly hopeful?
I’ll leave you with a few words from the author herself.
“Think of those flowers you plant / in the garden each year / they will teach you / that people too / must wilt / fall / root / rise / in order to bloom.”