The Sun and Her Flowers, Rupi Kaur

2.5 stars

First Sentence: bees came for honey

Thoughts:

Just because
you can
break
a sentence into

fragments
does not mean
you wrote

a poem.

There are rules.
Learn them.
Follow them.
Then break them.

Sonnets are more impressive
than this.

However, if you read each of the five sections of this book as an avant-garde short story rather than a collection of “poems,” it almost works. The best of the five were the “Falling” section about rape and recovery, and “Blooming” about accepting oneself as one is. “Wilting” is a decent Hallmark Channel-style breakup story, although I personally thought the narrator was way too into the guy. And in “Rising” she gets a new boyfriend and promptly gets way too into him.

But then I have no romance in my soul. Rooted it out years ago and salted the earth it grew in.

And while we’re on the topic of roots, the central chapter, “Rooting,” is just awful. It’s supposed to be about the power of immigrant women and transmitting that power to their children. However it’s a flimsy bit of tissue paper covered with meaningless platitudes that you can tell the author has heard but doesn’t really understand. There’s way too much “I never asked my mother about this but….” Why don’t you ask her? And if you have, why don’t you listen? And if you don’t answer why don’t you open your eyes and observe? For a chapter about her mother, it felt like it was too much about the author/narrator.

I want to be nice, though. Kaur has potential. The way she illustrated the “poems” was just wonderful and maybe if she really works at her craft and gains some more life experience* she’ll reach that potential.

*This book was written and published when she was barely in her twenties. I thought I knew it all when I was that age, too. Life quickly taught me otherwise, as it does to all of us.