Milk and Honey

by Rupi Kaur

#1 New York Times bestseller Milk and Honey is a collection of poetry and prose about survival. About the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity.

The book is divided into four chapters, and each chapter serves a different purpose. Deals with a different pain. Heals a different heartache. Milk and Honey takes readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to look.

• ISBN10: 144947425X
• ISBN13: 9781449474256
• Publish Date: 6 October 2015 (first published 4 November 2014)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Andrews McMeel Publishing
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 208
• Language: English

Reviews

[ibeforem]

I don't often read poetry, but one of the prompts for the Read Harder challenge is "Read an audiobook of poetry" and I've heard of this one for a long time so I decided to give it a shot.

Milk and Honey is a collection broken into four parts, each with a different theme -- the hurting, the loving, the breaking, and the healing. The result is a roller coaster ride of hurt, heartbreak, elation, and strength. Content warning: there is talk of sexual abuse and rape. There is some debate about whether what Kaur has written qualifies as poetry, but I think poetry is very subjective. Whether they are technically "poems" or not, I found much of her writing quite powerful. Some of my favorite parts:

"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
i was not made with a lightness on my tongue
so i could be easy to swallow
i was made heavy
half blade and half silk
difficult to forget and not easy
for the mind to follow"

"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."

However.

This book does not work as an audiobook. I had difficulty understanding the structure and when one piece ended and another piece began. I actually stopped listening at the end of the 3rd part, bought the Kindle version, read that, and then finished the audio version. You really need to see the words on the page and the additional artwork to feel the full impact.

But all in all, I'm glad I spent the time on this.

Too fragmented for me to enjoy. I don't mind tumblr style poetry but this was just a mess. Not sure why it's been so popular, there's better poets out there.

[jamiereadthis]

The cover art, it is gorgeous. That’s the extent to which I appreciated this book.

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

Poetry is very personal.

The most celebrated poets may light your soul on fire.  Or they may not speak to you at all.  Reviewing poetry is a very personal experience as well, and you should never take a blogger or reviewer's opinion on poetry as law.  Read a poem by the poet in question.  Find out if they make you come alive.

With that said, I have to be honest - I didn't love Milk and Honey.  Rupi Kaur is a highly celebrated modern, feminist poet.  Her poetry reaches a lot of people.  She's raw and real.  But the words didn't reach me.  And that's okay, you know?  The nice thing about poetry really is that things that don't appeal to me are perfect for someone else!

There were a few poems that I thought were lovely, but mostly the subject matter was something I couldn't relate to.  And that's okay too - the first section in particular is something I don't want to relate to.  I like her modern style and the brevity of most of her work.

I still recommend you give Rupi Kaur's work a try - whether that's Milk and Honey or another one of her books.  You may find her poetry is exactly what you're looking for.  It just didn't work for me.

[Chelsea]

This whole book talks about some pretty big topics but I think the author did it in a really good way. The poems were quick and easy to read while also being full of heavy material. It was interesting to read such a short book while also feeling like it was really long. I'm looking forward to reading her other work!

[boghunden]

Already reading it again. This proves how powerful words can be. 3

[Kelly]

A compilation of prose, Milk and Honey is impassioned and inspiring.

From her first kiss and subsequent sexual abuse, The Hurting explores the objectification of the female physique and the the capacity in which our personal spaces are permeated by men. The parental relationship nurturing and an alcoholic parent devoid of maternal capacity.

when my mother opens her mouth
to have a conversation at dinner
my father shoves the word hush
between her lips and tells her to
never speak with her mouth full
this is how the women in my family
learned to live with their mouths closed

The Loving examines the facets of affection. Both parental and the all encompassing intensity of an intoxicating relationship.

he says
i am sorry i am not an easy person to want
i look at him surprised
who said i wanted easy
i don't crave easy
i crave goddamn difficult

you might not have been my first love
but you were the love that made
all the other loves
irrelevant

The despair of a relationship dissolving explored throughout The Breaking. Anguish, exasperation, resentment and nostalgia.

this is where you must
understand the difference
between want and need
you may want that boy
but you certainly
don't need him
the thing
worth holding on to
would not have let go

The Healing is an empowering discussion of courage and fortitude. To be content within yourself and solitude. To break free of the constraints we place upon ourselves and learn to appreciate femininity and the female perspective.

i like the way the stretch marks
on my thighs look human and
that we're so soft yet
rough and jungle wild
when we need to be
i love that about us
how capable we are of feeling
how unafraid we are of breaking
and tend to our wounds with grace
just being a woman
calling myself
a woman
makes me utterly whole
and complete

losing you
was the becoming
of myself

The narration is segregated by four moments throughout Rupi Kaur's journey. Passionate and confronting. From the depths of despair, a physical exploitation stripping young women of their tenacity, courage germinates. Life flourishing in the most desolate of lands. Milk and Honey is an extraordinary compilation of anguish and empowerment, the fragility and fortitude of women. Remarkable.

[inlibrisveritas]

Milk and Honey is a book of poems about love, abuse, and womanhood. I’m not someone who reads a lot of poetry because it’s one of those intensely personal readings that don’t always hit people the same way. It’s emotion poured onto a page and it’s hard to say how anyone person will respond. It’s not that I avoid that uncertainty, it’s simply that I don’t actively seek it and I plan to change that this year.

All of the poems deal with some form of love or pain and it doesn’t shy away from difficult subjects. I really liked the rawness of Kaur’s poetry but the oddness of the free verse kind of detracted from the book as a whole. I don’t really mind odd spacing in poems, a lot of the time it has a purpose in some way, but it just didn’t hit me with some of these as being impactful. There was a lot a lot of repeat in some of the shorter poems that probably could have been combined on one page in some way…and in some cases, it wasn’t really poetry so much as a single sentence. I will say if you go into this expecting poetry in its more obvious forms, this isn’t for you. It’s an oddly disjointed affair at times, and while the passages are impactful it can be odd trying to figure out how to read it to get the impact it was meant to have. I found that in some cases it only worked well if read aloud.

It’s hard to really review something so based on personal experience and opinions, but I really did like it even though some of the poems just didn’t work for me or were underwhelming. I did love her body positive messages and her poems about speaking up, and the art was a nice touch in areas. It was a quick and mostly enjoyable read, but I’m sort of happy I didn’t purchase it like I had planned to.

[maeyuka]

By the second chapter I felt like giving up on this book. The first one made me very uncomfortable and triggered me here and there as well (especially during the first one) so please keep the warnings in your mind. I couldn't get into the second chapter at all either. And then the third one came, that made me feel almost exactly the same as the first one did.
I was about to give this book two stars, but the last chapter, the healing, had me change my mind and move it up to three stars instead. The last chapter was my personal favorite.
This is a very quick read and besides poetry you will find some illustrations in the book as well, which I appreciated.

The last thing I'd like to mention is a short poem, one I liked A LOT and that one is:

"if you were born with
the weakness to fall
you were born with
the strength to rise"

[payton]

Not a single thing in this book moved me.