Recently Read: Milk and Honey

Previous to this past weekend, I was not one of the 3 million people who had purchased Rupi Kaur's Milk and Honey. I had read individual poems from the collection- but somehow delayed purchasing and reading through from start to finish. This all changed when, on my perfect version of a Friday night, I watched Emma Watson in Conversation with Rupi Kaur- an interview for Our Shared Shelf.

I felt so inspired and so empowered after hearing Kaur talk (it's a great interview by the way- Watson is a very skilled & graceful interviewer) that I knew I had to read more, I needed to hear more of her voice. I ordered via Prime that night.

Two days later, upon its delivery, I immediately opened the box. I thought I would read the first few pieces, but once I started I could not stop. I read from cover to cover, and felt so moved by the words that were seemingly reaching out to me. Each poem evoked different thoughts & feelings and felt so personal- and it was a kind of personal that branched two ways. The poems are so clearly personal to Kaur- who says the work is her heart on each page- but what was surprising was how deeply personal the words felt to me. Several times I felt so acknowledged by the prose that I wanted to cry, I wanted to share with the world "this! this is what I felt! someone has put it into words! someone understands!"

I think that is the magic of Kaur's writing: each poem feels like a letter written for you. The reader, if open to the experience, can take what they need from the pages of this book. Feelings of love, vulnerarbilty, pain, healing -- are all a part of being human- and it is so wonderful to have such a raw expression of that experience shared with the world.