Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

'how is it so easy for you to be kind to be people he asked milk and honey dripped from my lips as I answered cause people have not been kind to me'

hey guys and welcome to a article by @jayjay1143 Thursday, 17th December 2020

originally I was planning on writing a review for the poetry book 'milk and honey', until a couple of nights ago when I was doing a little more research on the book. I came across what Kaur obstacles had to tackle in order to publish her poetry collection as a twenty-one year old University student that quickly became a New York Times bestseller.

I find it inspiring how Kaur has published two poetry books and they have both quickly become number one best sellers. I happened to find this out not too long ago, and I was really astonished as to how she self published a book so young and still in University. Then I thought about how she listened to her mentors and numerous people in her life, about going Pro and publishing poetry would get her nowhere. It's highly unlikely she would of achieved any of these great achievements at a young age. I think it's a natural instinct to get bummed out by rejection in any case, because you're basically being told no and that's never really nice to hear. I've come to learn that rejection is simply redirection, if something that you were hoping for just doesn't go your way. Try to not think it's the end of the world and all hope is lost, because it's really not :) What's meant for you will be for you, it all does work out you just might not realize it in the moment.

'my heart woke me up crying last night how can i help i begged my heart said write the book'

for those of you that have not heard of this book it focuses on the subject of survival, highlighting Kaur's many experiences. The book is divided into four sections, the hurting, the loving, the breaking and the healing each section relating to her journey.

For many years Kaur would express her passion for poetry through performing and writing, inspiration for poetry to become published came about quite quickly. It was said to her on numerous occasions that 'poetry basically never got published' from her writing professors and mentors. She simply shouldn't bother, she had no chance. Kaur had a better chance having individual poems published in literary journals, magazines, and anthologies. She was immediately shut down when asking if self-publishing would be a good route to take. The result was one rejection after another, this is when her perspective changed and set her eyes of self-publishing regardless of what the creative writing professor has said.

When telling the story of how she became published she expresses 'I was doing a disservice to my larger body of work by plucking pieces out of the collection, throwing them out there in the world, hoping they would land'

'our backs tell stories no books have the spine to carry'

After reading through each section of the book, it was definitely an eye opener and shifted my perspective on life a little as Kaur didn't not just include her personal experiences through her poetry. In a way it's pretty easy to relate to the majority of her work, because she talks about an emotion in each of the chapters. It's a comfort to know that it's okay to be your best self all of the time. Everyone has a few bad days here and there, but that does not been it's necessarily a bad life.

Thank you all for reading this article, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I had writing it! I hope that this article has left you with some useful advice that rejection is simply redirection!

see you next Thursday, Janayah!