I
hadn't heard of Rupi Kaur before but when I picked up The Sun and Her Flowers by chance, I
discovered she's popular contemporary poet and author. I also learnt that this
is her second – and apparently widely anticipated – poetry collection.
That
said, when I started reading I felt that there was such a big hype about this
book and that I was put off by it.
The Sun and Her
Flowers by Rupi Kaur is divided into 5 chapters: Wilting,
Falling, Rooting, Rising and, Blooming.
I
felt that the poems, or rather short quotes first two sections were sappy. I
was put off by them and was seriously considering NOT
finishing the collection. However, the third section "Rooting" showed
a significant change in both the content and level of writing, as if the author
had suddenly grown up.
Most
of the poems in The
Sun and Her Flowers are untitled, a few have the sort-of-title at the
end, and every now and then there is one long piece with a title. This makes it
quite hard to point out which pieces I liked (which weren't that many).
"love does not look like a person
love is our actions
love is giving all we can
even if it's just the bigger slice of cake
love is understanding"
The
above extract is from "what love looks
like" one of the longer
pieces in Kaur's collection. Another long one is "questions" which ironically has no question marks. It's also
long, dull, and sappy, unlike its predecessor.
Another
thing about punctuation is that The Sun and Her Flowers has zero
punctuation. I know many poets are doing this with their poetry nowadays BUT the problem lies when as a reader I can't tell
if the line I'm reading is meant as a thought or question. There were parts
when I was utterly lost and only realized that I should have been reading
questions not thoughts. The confusion irritated me.
"why are you so unkind to me
my body cries
cause you don't look like them
i tell her"
Many
pieces aren't poetic or what I'd describe as poetry; more like quotes. You know
those quotes people share on Instagram and Facebook. They're great, just not
poetry in my opinion. I found some of
the pieces to be recitable but not poetic, like "home"
a long sad piece about a rape.
Starting
"Rooting," many poems focus on the themes of maturity,
womanhood, being an immigrant and a refugee. Starting this section, we see a
major change and development from the previous sections; lots of growing up.
One
of the strongest pieces in The Sun and Her Flowers is in "Rooting" and it's called "advice i would've given my mother on her wedding
day." This piece is a mixture of short poem-like-pieces and
'bits' in the form of bullet points and advice. The first advice is "you're allowed to say no."
The poem "accent"
is one of the stronger pieces in the collection. One of my favorites
too.
(image)
There's a lot of
experimentation in The Sun and Her Flowers. Some good, some not so much.
But that's the normal case with poetry collections. You can't like every piece.
The
saddest poem in The Sun and Her Flowers is "female
infanticide," which shows
women struggles in the course of hundreds of years. I loved the progression. Despite
centuries passing, women are still struggling. 10 stars to this one.
Every
few poems are accompanied by some artwork, I don't know what this type of art
is called but it's not paintings. Also, some pieces are in short paragraphs.
One of the things I disliked
about The Sun and Her Flowers, and I'm glad I had an e-book for
this not a print one, is that some pieces were just a line. Yes, a page with
one line and move on. That's wasted paper if you ask me. I suppose I don't view
one-liners as poetry but at least they could have been combined in a single
page with *** between each.
Another
thing is the flow of the pieces; many aren't what you'd call poetic. They read
like prose, including the poem "broken english." It's a great piece but it would have been better
off placed in paragraph format than an attempted poem. It also had many words
that felt like the Kaur was showing off vocabulary and was distant even though
the poem is about her mother.
Overall,
I have mixed feelings about Rupi Kaur's The Sun and Her Flowers. I was expecting a lot more
from it. It's a good read, not amazing. There are powerful poems but there many
weak ones. I think the "bestselling status" earned from the first
book made many people pick this up.
The book's style reminded me of Amanda Lovelace's poetry collection The Princess Saves Herself in This One. The style being, the short pieces and the titles being the conclusion of the poem.
Overall rating for The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur: 2.5-3
stars.
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