In the Rupi Kaur follow-up to her hit poetry book, Milk and Honey, her new poetry book of The Sun and Her Flowers she once again goes back to her strong and independent views, speaking through feminism and woman’s eye. Her poems interact with the modern world around us, and it tucks us into bed with hope for the next day. As well as, it gives girls the truth that they can be whatever they like, and it crystallizes the idea that women should hold each up. Though she has all the beauty in her poetry of love, the dark side also shines through in haunting melodies.
This is just a taste of (some) of her best poems in The Sun and Her Flowers:
“what love Looks like”
In this poem, the woman sits down with her therapist, and the therapist asks “What does love look like?” As you can tell, this long poem starts here. Having gotten out a relationship, the girl must find her way back to love again as she realizes what exactly her relationship was based on. (Spoilers: not love.) Her most memorable lines when she starts to understand what he wasn’t: “... as if anybody on this entire earth/ could encompass all love represented/ as if this emotion seven billion people tremble for/ would look like a five foot eleven/ medium-sized brown-skinned guy/ who likes eating pizza for breakfast” (page 30). I will not spoil any more of this poem for you, but it one that lasts a while in the mind.
“focusing on the negative”
This is a short poem. Surely, it isn’t her shortest, but Kaur is known for her short poems that get to the point while engaging the reader. This is one of those poems, who pushes the idea that all humans feel at some point. This poem focuses on how fragile confidence is and how easily it is broken by someone. Whether it is a random person on the street or a loved one, to have your confidence torn down so easily only causes the worst pain because “and all the confidence shatters” (page 67).
“together”
Another short poem, because why not? Many people strive to have poems so concise and to sound so dignified, and Kaur does it easily. These three lines speak to everyone in a crowd or at home, whether you hate the party you are at or wished you were at the party, this poem speaks to you. Simplistic because no one ever thought about it this way, this is one to remember: “the irony of loneliness” (page 79).
“the art of growing”
If long poems were missed, I direct you to this long poem as a girl turns into a young women. In a woman’s life, it will happen at some point where we are just seen as objects, especially our bodies. Kaur speaks about becoming a woman and her mother speaking that she must cover up because men cannot control themselves. (This is all paraphrasing here.) The poem goes into details about how women must cover themselves so that men can control themselves and how women are expected to act but men do not have the same standards. “i am busy learning the consequences of womanhood/ when i should be learning science and math instead” (page 95).
“circumstances”
Reaching more into the political spectrum, in Kaur’s “Rooting” section, sudden poems become scenes within heads, speaking about refugees. Both of Kaur’s parents are immigrants, and throughout the “Rooting” section, she speaks on the change of coming to a new country. In this particular poem, Kaur hits hard with imagery and emotional pull, not only about refugees but all the pain in the world: “refugees boarded boats knowing/ their feet may never touch land again/ police shot people dead for the color of their skin” (page 130). Through this poem, she lists pain, but she also remembers how life is a “miracle.”
“i will find my way out of you just fine”
Uplifting and powerful, this poem carries momentum to push against the odds and when someone knocks you down, you get right back up. In this case, it is being buried alive. Six feet down, there is only one way to go: up. There are times that you can just let it go, but your survival depends on these next few moments. This short(er) poem is about doing it yourself and knowing that you can do it. It is the power that is in all of us. “when they buried me alive/ i dug my way” (page 147).
Page 206
Most of Kaur’s poems are untitled, so I will let you make up your mind about this title. (I am surprised I made it this far without running into an untitled issue.) For now, you can most likely find this poem on page 206 (if you’re reading the American version). For the poem, Kaur falls into the natural and explains how she belongs to the Earth. With quick statements thought to be almost melancholy, Kaur does not give a hint that she is afraid of anything that life throws at her, but she is ready to return to where she once was. “This place never belonged to me anyway/ i have always been theirs” (page 206).
“a simple math”
Back to the short poems, per usual Kaur, and she does not fail with this one. In six lines, she conveys the way to earn love. She places forward in an easier manner a hard task, and while she does not give the secret to finding love, she shows off the first step to us all. Having understood love and loss, Kaur knows that you must love to be loved, and to be loved you must love. Since the two go in hand, once you know love, you will never be without it: “you are a mirror” (page 229).
“let’s leave this place roofless”
While some authors would have the title introduce the piece or even a repetition of their poem, in Kaur’s case, she makes it a statement. The title of this poem is intriguing enough for the people who believe her to be building a house, but Kaur actually means to build a home. But she will not go at it alone, but she will have the millions of women around her help too. And one by one “bring your hammers and fists/ we have a glass ceiling to shatter” (page 231).
“love letter to the world”
In the end of the book, though certainly not the last poem of her story collection, Kaur writes a love letter to everyone who dares to read it, and to the people who dare to read it aloud for many to hear, this one is for you. This is Kaur’s promise to the world, and perhaps the promise everyone else will feel too, so they repeat it all the same. It is a call to love and to fight; it is a call to hope and to change; it is a call for tomorrow. “i will carry you to freedom” (page 243).
The second collection of Rupi Kaur’s poems is yet another step forward to change in the world of social injustice, but it is also a show of how poetry has come along ways since Dr. Seuss rhymes and metaphors galore. Now all the hopeful and changing girls and women must wait for her third collection.
