Book Review – The Sun and Her Flowers, Rupi Kaur

There are many glorious names adorning the genre of poetry. Names that can at once excite the reader as they are uttered. Names that can tinge the air with a peculiar sensation. Kahlil Gibran, Gulzar, Pablo Neruda and Kamala Das are a few such names drawn from my own reading experience. This woman Rupi Kaur is definitely headed towards that elite list, provided she keeps writing the way she does – touching our deeply hidden emotions, fears and desires at ease through her words. Of course, it is too early to attribute such a halo around her head. But few contemporary poets write with the candidness that is her forte.

Poetry isn’t merely putting together a bunch of flowery words and hoping that the reader will get to see the hidden meaning in them. A poem gets conceived like a child. Only a poet can understand the birthing pangs as a poem takes shape deep inside one’s soul. Every poem written on paper is a sliver of a poet’s persona. A poem is a collage of all the dreams, pains, failures, desires, hopes, experiences and expectations that swirl within the vortex that is the poet’s mind. And, this poetess beautifully lays them all down straight on paper.

This much-awaited anthology continues from where the previous collection left. Just like the previous work, this book also deals mainly with themes like love, longing, grief and healing, with a feministic attitude towards them. Just like human personality, some poems convey the pain of separation, while some poems deal with the process of healing the heart. Some poems speak about the fear of being not enough, while most speak about self-love and self-worth. A refreshing aspect in this collection is her paying attention to the search for identity in a land faraway from her own. Poems written with compassion for her parents, their struggle to make their lives in a place far from their motherland, her empathy towards their pains, emotions and sacrifices make moving reading. It is refreshing too, as a break from the usual pining over the loss of a beloved.

Another fresh thing about her writing is that she isn’t negative with her words, there is no male-bashing in the name of feminism, and the pages don’t just stay soaked in tears and self-pity. As much as she feels low over the loss of love, she exudes abundant hopes and self-worth as well. Also, delicate topics like physical desires, self-pleasure, etc., which, if handled carelessly, can give the work a lewd tint, have been handled with utmost sensitivity that only the poets are blessed with. Her seemingly scribbled illustrations are blissful too.

Occasionally one can’t help feeling that the book feels very similar to the previous work and sounds more like the second volume of a collection than like a separate work. But, being so young and so intense, she can be ‘forgiven’ for not diversifying on her themes yet. I am hopeful that as she ages, she will diversify her themes and get beyond mere ‘feministic’ themes.

Full of unconventional poems – from spellings to themes – and poetic sentences, this book feels more like a gallery of emotions. This is more than a book. This is an experience for the eyes!