Milk and Honey

Sadly, I think this book was a waste of my money.

I did like the way the sections were divided up, and how they suggested the growth and healing and acceptance of the speaker after a trauma. I appreciated the #motherfuckinggirlpower and the empowerment the words provided. I felt like there is genuinely good advice in there about loving yourself and your body.

But since when did poetry become advice?? Half of the poems were aphoristic and vague, no better than what pops up on my instagram feed. Most of the poems didn't have titles, which made them feel even more like a Dove wrapper. For a speaker espousing growth and learning to take up space and to be assertive - the lines are short, small, and she uses “i” instead of “I” which makes her seem even more innocent and small. Furthermore, it's just not... exciting. It is not fresh. Sure, it is raw and exposed and minimalist which is what the author is going for but I've seen this achieved so much more tactfully (I quite enjoy a lot of @nayyirah.waheed)– there needs to be SOMETHING in there to hold on to.. some subversive use of language or line, some new metaphor, a delight in sound, SOMETHING. There's just nothing to unpack, nothing that refreshes my view of the world. Instead, it just seems like someone cracked open a damaged 21-year-old, and this spilled on the page. I guess that's what she was going for? It just feels immature.

The last section started to get there for me, but there was still no poem I finished thinking “Damn.” Which is how I evaluate a good poem. When it makes me realize something. Makes me pause. See the world just a little bit different. Makes me think “this person is so fucking good with words it almost hurts.” That never happened.

But I see why this book has gotten so popular. It is exactly BECAUSE there is nothing to unpack, BECAUSE the lines are so short, BECAUSE the language is so accessible and metaphors are so simple and sparse. So on the one hand, I'm like “cool, this gets people interested in poetry who wouldn't otherwise be!” but then I'm also like “but this is actually not very good poetry...“

So in conclusion I am conflicted about this book and its role in society and whether or not good poetry is forever dead to pop culture. Like the fact that this is a best-seller is actually upsetting to me. But maybe it's a bestseller because it has helped other women find a home in their body and heal their traumas and that is a beautiful thing. Does it make me a bad person then, to think this is truly shitty poetry? I have to think more about it.

with respect to the author sufferings and personal story, I don't feel she shared anything with the reader. Milk & Honey tries to be so generic that anyone can relate to something in it.

very basic, shallow and vague. I don't know if it qualifies to be described as a book where half the pages are drawings.

"father. you always call to say nothing in particular. you ask what i'm doing or where i am and when the silence stretches like a lifetime between us i scramble to find questions to keep the conversation going. i come from the same aching blood. from the same bone so desperate for attention i collapse in on myself. i am your daughter. i know the small talk is the only way you know how to tell me you love me. cause it is the only way i know how to tell you."

I wish I enjoyed this as much as everybody else, however I found this collection quite underwhelming. I might not be a modern poetry kind of person, who knows. There were a handful of poems I found beautifully written and moving (like the one I quoted), but the rest were simply not compelling enough for me.

Il y a des livres qui accrochent votre regard sans que vous ne sachiez vraiment pourquoi, posés tranquillement sur un rayonnage. Je ne sais pas ce qui m'a attiré exactement vers Milk and Honey, mais lire deux poèmes m'ont suffit à l'acheter immédiatement. J'y ai retrouvé énormément de douceur, beaucoup de douleurs communes, de peines de coeurs partagées mais aussi d'espoir à l'état pur. Une poésie simple, directe, profondément humaine qui s'étale sans fausse pudeur à travers ces pages. Un moment magnifique.

“you were a dragon long beforehe came around and saidyou could flyyou will remain a dragonlong after he's left”

''i want to apologize to all the women i have called pretty before i've called them intelligent or brave i am sorry i made it sound as though something as simple as what you're born with is the most you have to be proud of when your spirit has crushed mountains from now on i will say things like you are resilient or you are extraordinary not because i don't think you're pretty but because you are so much more than that''


I want to a start the review with this quote, beacuse I think it sets perfectly the tone of this book.
Kaur's poetry is meaningful, simple -yet so beautiful- and above it all, it is loud. Yes, so loud, you have to listen to what she says. Because she won't shut up, and I love it.

I hope her voice is NEVER silenced beacuse I need her to keep writing stuff like this.
I feel like I know her so well now... ‘cause she is not going to sugar coat ANYTHING. She talks about rape, body image, loving yourself, being confident, love, learning to move on, body hair, periods, and I love it.

The poetry is accompanied by gorgeous illustrations that make the experience of reading this book even more engaging. The writing style is quite simple, but that doesn't mean it isn't whimsical, and well, poetical. The simplicity of this book made me feel more, I don't know... familiar, you can say? Made me feel closer to Rupi and to her experiences, and sometimes I felt them like my own, and I loved that.

So, If you didn't already guess it, I really loved this book, and is now very deep in my heart.

Please if you have the opportunity to pick this book, don't give it a second thought!

Poetically Beautiful


Sometimes you just need a change of pace. That is what Milk and honey was for me.

Divided into four chapters–the hurting, the loving, the breaking, the healing– MILK AND HONEY (2015) is a provocative collection of poems meant to empower females. This work may be considered feminist but it is worth every minute you invest in it.

Like many of her critics, I question the literary or poetic merit of Kaur's craft: the traditional elements of poetry as we have been taught to recognize them (alliteration, rhyme, rhythm, simile, metaphor, personification etc.) aren't evident in many of her poems. Her line breaks are at times dubious. At their basic level, some of her poems seem to be renditions of familiar advice or platitudes. In a few cases, some of the poems seem repetitive. And yet, I can admit that her words are impactful, for the seemingly simple way she expresses her ideas resonate on a universal way. I have been writing poetry since I can remember it has always been a way of painting with words for me. This paints pain and healing so beautifully that you can finish this book in one sitting and take things away from it to take with you for a long time. I needed a break and this was a great one