While I appreciate someone sharing their feelings and life experiences, this was done in poor form. There were maybe two "poems" that actually made me feel something. Mostly it was these generic thoughts that the internet is full of. I didn’t see any need of printing them out.

That would still make me rate this “ok” but the reason I went one star is that I quite disliked the author’s attitude. There is this part where she is offended that her boyfriend tells her that she is better than other girls:

you tell me
i am not like most girls
and learn to kiss me with your eyes closed
something about the phrase—something about
how i have to be unlike the women
i call sisters in order to be wanted
makes me want to spit your tongue out
like i am supposed to be proud you picked me
as if i should be relieved you think
i am better than them

Well first, he told you that you are different, not better but ok...
But if you are so modest as to get offended by this innocent compliment, then what is this:

the woman who comes after me will be a bootleg version of who i am. she will try and write poems for you to erase the ones i’ve left memorized on your lips but her lines could never punch you in the stomach the way mine did. she will then try to make love to your body. but she will never lick, caress, or suck like me. she will be a sad replacement of the woman you let slip. nothing she does will excite you and this will break her. when she is tired of falling apart for a man that doesn’t give back what he takes she will recognize me in your eyelids staring at her with pity and it’ll hit her. how can she love a man who is busy loving someone he can never get his hands on again.

And this was not the only instance of her literary saying that she is better than the other girls… ( )

I have very conflicting feeling about this work as a whole. Some of the individual poems are very moving, and I read them several times and really took something from them. On the other hand, multiple ones felt very uninspired and empty, which is a harsh thing to say (especially given the subject matter) but I really felt like there could have been more thought to them.

One of my favorites was the one that began,"did you think I was a city / big enough for a weekend getaway / I am the town surrounding it / the one you've never heard of / but always pass through /..."

But on the page next to that piece, another poem simply reads,"you mustn't have to / make them want you / they must want you themselves"

Sure, this may be true, but I found it (almost annoying) sparse- and there are very many of these short poems in "milk and honey". There was so little substance to them individually.

Then here's my conflict: this is a collection. And, when read together, as almost a novel, these little poems combine to create a more forceful narrative as a WHOLE than they do INDIVIDUALLY. However, part of be just can't ignore the fact that I thought there was a lack of creativity and emotion in some of these poems. The ones I enjoyed I REALLY enjoyed, and vise versa. ( )

Simple, lovely poetry. ( )

Cold take, but this is almost unreadable at times. I'd give 1.5 stars instead of just 1 because some of the poems in here do legitimately have promise and merit, and I think Kaur could develop as a writer.

Keyword: could

A lot of the poems in this collection are almost blatantly copied from concepts scattered around the internet, and given that this was published in 2015 I have a difficult time believing that is a coincidence. Some of them feel so thoughtless and low-effort that it is embarrassing. The few poems that do have merit are unpolished, but I want to believe that there's a diamond in the rough here... somewhere. ( )

Poetically Beautiful


Sometimes you just need a change of pace. That is what Milk and honey was for me.

Divided into four chapters--the hurting, the loving, the breaking, the healing-- MILK AND HONEY (2015) is a provocative collection of poems meant to empower females. This work may be considered feminist but it is worth every minute you invest in it.

Like many of her critics, I question the literary or poetic merit of Kaur's craft: the traditional elements of poetry as we have been taught to recognize them (alliteration, rhyme, rhythm, simile, metaphor, personification etc.) aren't evident in many of her poems. Her line breaks are at times dubious. At their basic level, some of her poems seem to be renditions of familiar advice or platitudes. In a few cases, some of the poems seem repetitive. And yet, I can admit that her words are impactful, for the seemingly simple way she expresses her ideas resonate on a universal way. I have been writing poetry since I can remember it has always been a way of painting with words for me. This paints pain and healing so beautifully that you can finish this book in one sitting and take things away from it to take with you for a long time. I needed a break and this was a great one


( )