Reviews with content warning for Abandonment - Milk and Honey

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Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

18 reviews

biapoweer's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad fast-paced

4.25

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jadehusdanhicks's review against another edition

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dark emotional inspiring fast-paced

4.0

This book was an ode to life. A true soliloquy to Kaurs life experiences.

I really enjoyed this and how it was like walking down a path and following her journey. It’s heartbreaking at times, but for me sometimes all too relatable. I think it’s a vital read for others as it meaningfully covers love,loss,trauma,abuse,healing and femininity.

The titles almost brutal. The hurting. The loving. The breaking. And finally the healing. Blunt but a statement, each chapter flowed and was emotive. I think it’s a great entryway to poetry for those who’ve not read it before, but one to be mindful of with how some of its topics can be painful to read.

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bek_p87's review against another edition

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emotional reflective fast-paced

2.5

I don't normally read poetry, because I'd rather people just came out and said what they meant, rather than dancing around with millions of metaphors, so I didn't think I would like this much. Turns out I was right, but for the opposite reason - I wish Rupi Kaur had said LESS in plain language, had used MORE lyrical language, and written essays rather than poems.

i didn't like
the structure
of the poems
reading them
hurt
my brain

And while the artwork was cute, and much better than anything I've ever drawn, it wasn't enough to elevate the poems out of banality. I am sorry for the things Kaur has suffered in her life, and appreciate her attempts to relay it in a universal way that might be relatable and helpful to others. I just didn't really get anything out of this.

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only_bexx's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

2.75

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reader1292938484's review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring fast-paced

5.0

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mlnfrdt's review against another edition

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IT WZS SHIT SORRY NOT SORRY I HAD TO READ IT FOR SCHOOL AND I JUST FELT LIKE SHE WAS TRYING TO MUCH TO BE AESTHETIC

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margaritium's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

This is a free thought flow poetry book by the genius poetess that is Rupi Kaur. As a desi woman myself some of the poems hit hard and were really close to home. In the similiar manner Rupi Kaur talks about some heavy topics and her life story in a beautiful and clear way yet does not compromise depth.

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sydney_mari3's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective tense fast-paced

4.5

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zabeishumanish's review against another edition

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dark emotional

3.75

This is a poetry collection for people that don't read poetry. Or rather, I think people unfamiliar with poetic conventions will prefer this to people intimately familiar with poetry. I enjoyed this collection, but it didn't knock me on my ass the way I expected it to. There are a few genuinely stand-out lines that pack a remarkable amount of power into very concise statements, but I would call the majority of the collection overdone. There were also a few poems I downright hated, but that number is significantly fewer than the ones I loved. The few poems I hated, I hated because Rupi pits herself against other women and tries to put herself above them. Considering that this is a young woman's first collection I am interested to see how her poems change as she gets older and more experienced.

if i knew what
safety looked like
i would have spent
less time falling into
arms that were not
(21)

The collection is split into four sections. The first two sections are significantly shorter, about 35 pages, than the last two which are about 60 pages. With the exception of the first section, "the hurting", I couldn't decipher a notable reason for the poems to be grouped into these sections. Having the collection split into sections did provide a nice kind of reading guide, but I couldn't distinguish any thematic or style differences between the last three sections. The first section is notably different and deals with the ideas of family and lost or broken childhood. Those topics are not addressed elsewhere in the collection, so perhaps each section is written about different events in Rupi's life, but if that is the case I couldn't tell you what specific events Rupi is writing about for the last three sections. I'm focused on these sections because Rupi has provided no other identifying information for most of these poems. I am assuming every page of this book is a self-contained poem, but without titles, I'm not even confident saying that. I would estimate that less than half of these poems are titled (assuming that the italicized words after a hyphen at the bottom of some pages are titles and not some weird epigram). I don't know that these are titles as they are not indicated in the table of contents, only the section names are noted.

you tell me to quiet down cause / my opinions make me less beautiful / but i was not made with a fire in my belly / so i could be put out
(30)

The stand-out poems of the collection are; the poems on pages 14, 17, 47, 59, 63, 65, 95, 98, 101, 109, 156, 169, 199, and the titled poems "the idea of shrinking is hereditary", "letter to my future lover", "how he touches me", "women of color".
I found a couple of other poems in the collection notable because of how much they reminded me of my favorite poems by other poets. The poem on page 166;

to be / soft / is / to be / powerful

is a more succinct version of the message in Iain S. Thomas' poem "The Fur". The word soft is hardly unique to these two poems, but the way that both poets herald the idea of softness as a great strength does feel unique. Iain's poem while also short is considerably expanded from Rupi's and those few expansions on the idea make that poem both more memorable and more powerful. While I think the message in Rupi's poem is beautiful, I only find the poem impactful because it evokes Iain's poem for me.
Rupi's poem on page 183 reminds me of Ocean Vuong's "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" not quite because they are similar, but more an antithesis to each other. Rupi's poem

we are all born / so beautiful // the greatest tragedy is / being convinced we are not

is much shorter and more direct than the Vuong poem. Both Ocean and Rupi's poems seem to share the message that beauty (maybe innocence) can be corrupted, but they go about that in very different ways. Rupi basically says that beauty is tarnished by life experience, while the title of Vuong's poem carries the message and the body of the poem enumerates the ways beauty is tarnished. I think Ocean's poem carries more emotional weight, while Rupi's is more direct and concise in its message. Neither of Rupi's poems is similar enough that I think Rupi was inspired by Vuong or Thomas, but the strong similarities in the messages of the poems feel significant to me. Especially because the Thomas and Vuong poems I am reminded of are my respective favorites of each of these artists. Even more especially because all four of the poems touch on how the world and life experiences often change a person.

i do not want to have you
to fill the empty parts of me
i want to be full on my own
i want to be so complete
i could light a whole city
and then
i want to have you
cause the two of us combined
could set it on fire
(59)

The consistent craft choices that Rupi has made through this collection are interesting to me, mostly because they are not choices I understand. I was first drawn to Rupi's poetry online and I love the way that her poems pair with her art. I love that the images are all simple line drawings, but that the detail in the drawings varies wildly through the collection without any of the drawings feeling out of place. The choice that confuses me is that (with only two exceptions) every poem appearing on the right-hand page of the collection includes a drawing. None of the pages on the left have any visuals, beyond the visual effects of the words on a page. This must be a purely aesthetic choice for each set of pages to have only one drawing. The ridged uniformity of the choice makes me feel as though the intention of the drawings as a whole is purely aesthetic, rather than to enhance the language of Rupi's poems. I'm glad Rupi didn't force a drawing for every poem if that isn't what felt right for the poem, but something felt off about the way they are structured here. The two exceptions are at the end of the second and the penultimate end of the third sections of the book. The two exceptions are also the only two poems that I think span more than one page, making them the longest poems in the whole collection. Both of the poems are also titled and use the punctuation rarely seen in this book, because the poems are so unique from the rest of the collection in length and form I would think them significant enough to warrant an enhancing visual. Maybe the lack of drawing is intended to make them stand out. Or maybe they fill too much of the page to fit an image. Neither of the two poems were standouts for me though, so I'm unsure why they are so unique from the rest of the collection.

Only ten poems in the collection include any punctuation and none of the poems, actually nowhere in the collection, is there any capitalization. I appreciate the commitment to the style choices, but I don't think the cross-collection uniformity enhances my understanding or enjoyment of the collection.

i didn't leave because / i stopped loving you / i left because the longer / i stayed the less / i loved myself
(95)

More than any other collection I've read, this would benefit from a forward or artist's statement. I understand that she is trying to let the poems speak for themselves, but without more information about these titleless poems, they become difficult to read and even more difficult to talk about.

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katieemilys's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective relaxing sad fast-paced

4.0

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