Poetry. When you hear that word you automatically associate it with Shakespeare, old smelly books, and falling asleep in a stuffy English classroom. Due to this, you become too afraid to pick up any book that might have the slightest intent of being poetic. However, I’ve noticed more and more that classic poetry has faded from the shelves and a new, modern form is taking its place. And that’s where Rupi Kaur comes in.

On Nov. 4, 2014 Rupi Kaur’s new book, Milk and Honey, hit the shelves of bookstores all over the country. It brought readers a new form of poetry that they actually enjoyed and got emotional over instead of a book packed page to page with stanzas filled with empty words.

Contrary to a traditional poetic form, this book instead reads like tiny verses and snippets from her mind. And let me tell you this, the effect was not lost in her second book The Sun and her Flowers.

When I first picked up this book I was at first scared that it wouldn’t live up to the high expectations I had for it, but those fears were put to rest as soon as they started. You can tell just from flipping through the pages that Kaur put a lot of effort into this book and didn’t take the material lightly.

Even though in the book she doesn’t specifically say what subject is being brought up, you can tell due to the power and emotion behind the words what might be being hinted to. From rape, to love, to learning to love yourself, and even to the relationship with her mother, no matter what is being written about it won’t cease to draw tears.

My absolute favorite thing about this book is the way that Kaur is able to make something so impactful with such few words. These types of sentences seem to punch you in the gut such as the featured picture above.

The format of The Sun and her Flowers doesn’t read like a traditional book like I mentioned before, but it does have a plot which features the Kaur’s journey.

It’s a journey of how she went from somebody who didn’t treat herself with love and turned to abusive relationships and people who didn’t treat her fairly to learning about self love and empowerment.

This book is truly a great find and even though you might not be the biggest fan of poetry, it’s still worth your time. It teaches you a lot about yourself and afterwards I found myself reaching for my phone to text all of my friends to read it.

Let me know what you guys want me to review next!

Here is the link to Rupi Kaur’s website if you want to check out some more of her work:

https://rupikaur.com/