The Sun and Her Flowers

the sun and her flowers

Author	Rupi Kaur
Language	English
Genre	Poetry Romance
Publisher	Andrews McMeel Publishing
Publication date	October 3, 2017
Publication place	United States
Preceded by	milk and honey

the sun and her flowers is the second collection of poetry written by the Punjabi-Canadian author Rupi Kaur. It was published by Andrews McMeel Publishing on October 3rd, 2017. The collection follows the previous book's format of sections, each containing poems that relate to one another. In the sun and her flowers is a journey of wilting, falling, rooting, rising, and blooming. A celebration of love in all its forms.

Summary

Falling

This section ended with a poem that brings in the whole entire novel.

this is the recipe of life

said my mother

as she held me in her arms as I wept

think of those flowers you plant

in the garden each year

they will teach you

that people too

must wilt

fall

root

rise

in order to bloom

Rooting

This section of the book is Rupi Kaurs favortite out of this collection.

Structure

On the back cover of Kaur's collection, she has a poem that gives readers a good indication as to how she's structured her poems within the book. Beginning with 'wilting,' she speaks of the end of a long-term relationship and the heartache and feeling of loss that one feels when losing someone one loves. The next section is 'falling,' which centers around falling out of love with yourself and then learning to love who you are for what faults you have. 'Rooting' is next, and she speaks of her parents' immigration and being raised by Indian parents who speak little-to-no English. Then she describes 'rising' as she falls in love once again. The last section is 'blooming,' which details her newfound love for herself, her mother, her roots, and her personal identifiers as she stands up for women and people of color.

Publication and Reception

Development

After self-publishing, her first novel "Milk and Honey," Kaur signed a two-book deal with Simon and Schuster. Due to "Milk and Honey" selling two million copies and being on the New York Times Best Sellers list for over 73 weeks, Kaur found it extremely difficult to start creating her second novel. She felt as if her new book needed to exceed the sales, beauty, and attention that "Milk and Honey" received. Kaur attempted to begin the new book's journey for months, but nothing she wrote satisfied her expectations. Writing about death and immigration, Kaur quickly denied the ideas due to her having the concept of what "The Sun and Her Flowers" was to be filled with. However, Kaur eventually came to the realization that she needed to stop fighting her mind and told herself, "I'm just going to write what comes."

Kaur's main goal throughout "The Sun and Her Flowers" was to focus on was the corrective experience that occurs. Kaur expressed her love for the poems about death, mainly because death has been something she's been contemplating for quite a while. Mentioning her first book "Milk and Honey"-a collection of poems that tackles tough themes such as rape, violence, alcoholism, trauma- Kaur describes "The Sun and Her Flowers" as a grown-up version of her first book, but she goes deeper; it's more emotional.

Publication

The Sun and Her Flowers was published on October 3, 2017. A week after the book was released, it landed itself number two on Amazon's best-seller list. Within its first two weeks of publication it landed on the top ten New York Times Best Sellers list. Since its release “The Sun and Her Flowers” has currently been vying for No. 1 on Amazon, along with Dan Brown’s novel “Origin” and John Green’s “Turtles All the Way Down.”

Critical Response

As with Kaur's previous book, The Sun and Her Flowers was met with mixed reviews. Milk and Honey had some controversy surrounding it with claims that Kaur copied other artists' formats and told other people's stories, rather than her own.

The New York Times published an online article two days after the release of Kaur's sophomore work about a New York City reading that the reporter has attended to speak with fans of Kaur's. In the article, the reporter describes both sides of the critical reception of Kaur's works, starting with the downside by saying, "The underlying message of all this criticism is that Ms. Kaur’s work isn’t “real literature.” The literary world doesn’t have a great track record of embracing or even acknowledging artists like Ms. Kaur, who are different in some notable way, but who attract an enormous and fervent audience." Then the reporter goes on to state the positive side of Kaur's work that she observed: "Many fans told me they share her poems with friends via Instagram or screenshots sent as texts, as encouragement or as a way to let Ms. Kaur’s work speak for them."

Another article that looks at both the negatives and positives of Kaur's work comes from The Guardian, and in it, the reporter uses poems from Kaur's repertoire and explains how simplistic the language often is. The reporter states: "Even if you like her writing, these little jabs at her plaintive voice are spot on: one of Kaur’s actual poems muses “If you are not enough for yourself/you will never be enough / for someone else” and, while that gained 175,000 likes on Instagram, it has the air of the slurred advice you might overhear at the back of a Wetherspoons." However, the reporter then goes on to defend Kaur's concise and somewhat condensed poetry by saying, "But to read Kaur’s success as an omen of the death of poetry would be to unfairly dismiss writing that contains bravery, beauty, and wisdom. Frankly, the literary world is saturated with white male voices of dubious quality. Kaur’s poetry should be given the same freedom to be flawed."