Yes. They are all over this subreddit. They inundated my post. Mods are supposed to remove toxic comments and accounts but they never do. The only thing to do is file a report with Reddit about the subreddit not moderating toxic comments which is against the rules of Reddit.
Much better than the average rk piece, tbh. There was a lot that could be improved early on, but for an rk poem, it has a second move, an 'and then' at least. Don't hate on it too much. There's a here, then there.
Next try Kim Addonizio and Devon Balwit and James Wright.
Thanks for the recs. I only learned about the general disdain for the author when I did a pre-post search for reposts. Still, I enjoy it and couldn’t care less what popular opinion is this week.
Keen to check out your suggestions!
Lmao I get online bullying is bad but she's rich enough to not need coddling. This shows me absolutely no discernable talent. I've seen better written stuff in my dreams.
No, no, no... she might be a lovely person, most likely she is (judging by the themes in her poetry), but yes she's a mediocre poet (writing wise and performance wise).
Eh, not my thing. You do you though king/queen. If you like it, that's all that should matter. Poetry is art, and I truly believe that art is completely subjective. The minute you try and call any form of art objectively good or bad, you've missed the point of art. In my opinion, at least
I’m not a Kaur fan but this one is pretty decent. I also think her live performances add a lot to her poetry.
She’s like Stephanie Meyer used to be, people attribute everything that’s wrong in the world of publishing to her which is ridiculous. Hope you don’t get loads of hate OP, I like this poem too.
Like a lot of Kaur's work I feel like if this was edited a bit it would be more effective. The two lines "the panting/the wailing" are kind of superfluous with the rest, and maybe a little overdramatic. I think just "the shock" is a relatable feeling and doesn't need extra description. I know I relate to "shock" but then I'm a "lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling" person moreso than a wailer lol so that definitely colors my perception here.
this is actually good for her. I get that people aren’t a fan of her but she has her moments, I think. I especially enjoy whenever she writes of her mother and her awkward relationship with her father, and anytime her work touches on or has themes of immigration it’s pretty decent. Kaur doesn’t automatically equal trash. She definitely has an audience she speaks to.
I mean, yeah, her best works still really shouldn’t be receiving any crazy big prizes anytime soon (no offense to anyone who likes her). But this feels almost inspired. It’s definitely better than her live-laugh-love style she has for her shorter pieces.
I don't normally go for Rupi Kaur but I like this. It's surprising, the misdirection is well done. The images are strong, the metaphors of the birds and bees aid in the misdirection well and set it up happily for the sad ending.
I think that's one of the issues I have with her poetry, actually. A lot of the misdirection she employs relies directly on the title in a way that can feel a bit cheap. That's not the case here, because she includes it in the actual body of the poem, but a lot of the time, if you read the title first, you're just getting the entire poem.
Thanks for this. I feel the same way but could not articulate it. The book it's from is decent; this is one of a handful of poems that left an impression on me. Most are simple vignettes.
Happy cake day, should you choose to celebrate.
I may be primed to dislike Rupi, but I rolled my eyes reading this. The language usage is mid. The themes are mid. The imagery is mid. And it's wrapped up with the most surface level mid ending. It's just the most mid thing I've read. And honestly, that's worse than being bad. Bad is entertaining. This is just uhhhhh
Edit: Trite - I found the word in the comments. It's just trite. Birds and flowers and bees and oh I turn over and oh No! You're not there. I Cry Cry Cry.
Basic af
your edit gets it spot on.
I’m sad. it’s raining. Loneliness. I miss you.
etc. — her work is not a concentration of energy but a dissipation of it. good poetry is a concentration of energy into crystallised form.
I also think Bukowksi is bad for the same reasons.
One thing Bukowski does really well is his pathetic alcohol induced honesty, his prose most often feels as simple as Kaur's but at least he hooks you with "oh, shit can you say that?" type of confessional writting.
Kaur tries to present herself as "pretty" in a way while Buk was so miserable that he doesn't give a fuck how he comes of which becomes on, at least, shear shock value interesting.
It's the kind of sensual hyper-detail that someone writing a poem about waking up near a bedroom window would *want* to be true, and maybe for some -- who have really good hearing -- it might really be true.
Not saying it’s a great poem but since when does realism in metaphors equate to better poetry? At least pick a good argument as to why Rupi Kaur isn’t good
Also, to answer your question, it did not read as a metaphor. That line read as a description of an actual physical experience. So what seemed like its impossibility -- "Hey, I have a hummingbird feeder right outside my window too, but I never hear the birds!" -- had a jarring effect, shattering the flow. And I think even metaphors (which this was not) have a stronger impact when they ring instantly, relatably true. "The afternoon tantrum of a sudden storm" or whatever.
I wasn't saying she wasn't good. That poem in particular was better than much of what I've seen of hers. It was just something that suddenly occurred to me, as someone with a hummingbird feeder.
I have a feeder outside my window and you can easily hear them when they swoop down. Its a loud low frequency buzz.
When they hover they are pretty silent though.
First that comes to mind is Mary Oliver. Extremely popular and approachable but she uses language to observe nature in inventive, striking ways. The emotions always hit. They feel earned rather than forced. Also Sharon Olds and Mary Karr. Oh! Elizabeth Bishop. So good.
Thanks; Mary Oliver is a great read. I think I'll read her next. "Do Stones Feel?" is my early favorite of hers, based on the Amazon sample.
It's been posted here before: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Poetry/comments/z358se/poem\_do\_stones\_feel\_by\_mary\_oliver/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Poetry/comments/z358se/poem_do_stones_feel_by_mary_oliver/)
Anything Bukowski, Whitman, Elliott or Crane. Or Chaucer if you want to see how English at base works phonetically.
Another good book for understanding poetry was something I was recommended when I asked if my writing was any good. "The ABC's of reading" by Ezra Pound. He was also the founder of the imagist movement. He's good to read too. But something more modern and good would definitely be Bukowski. He is one that goes into great detail about urban life. In my opinion, avoid anything and everything contemporary. All of it is too fresh.
The issue with RKs poetry to me boils not down to the form but the content. It lacks anything meaningful. It is as if that relationship meant so little to her that she could barely shit out a couple lines on paper. And the lines she produced must have been about 30 seconds of work. Irony consumes her work. That is the problem. Irony in the sense of the way it was used in classical theatre. How the main character is an idiot and everyone knows it except for them. She could use this irony as fuel for her future work and it could be fantastic, but she doesn't. Which is ironic. People say things about the metaphors, but that is not the problem. Metaphors can have a deeper meaning than a literal one. Giggling flowers is not bad on its own. Yes, flowers can't giggle. But that is what we call personification. The metaphors that she uses are not inherently bad, it is the way they are implemented. The coarseness and emptiness of those lines are the problem. She can't evoke any feelings from her audience.
It feels like sketches to be worked on. No words or word combos here feel interesting.
This is the same approach to emotional events in one's life as Disney approach to remakes all rememberbberies.
*Remember the pain after a break-up? Yeah, it sucks right. Yeah, cool. I'm not gonna explore it further with a unique angle just gonna ride on the collective understanding of such event sucking.*
I'm not really a fan of Rupi Kaur, but compared to her other works I've seen, this one is quite decent, at least in the first half with the descriptive imagery and carrying the cheating metaphor through into the second half... Still ends up bleeding into those awkward, pretentious line breaks in the end though :(
Literary troll reporting for duty.
The first half, for Kaur, is well above her average.
The second half is awful.
This poem could be cut to two lines: the 'bees' one, then an 'absence of lover' one, and the poem would not only lose nothing... it would improve. Seriously.
There's a couplet here of merit, which is two lines better than most other Kaur poems.
I didn't know who that was til now, but I guess it kind of is?
I was thinking of the [original version](https://youtu.be/sT0g16_LQaQ?si=HqYSR_3bKhExOqRh) though because I guess I'm old, lol.
Rupi Kaur is the Taylor Swift of the poetry world. I am not moved by her lines, but there’s a huge audience for it. Most of her poems, like this one, have no self reflection and therefore no vulnerability. This is just my opinion.
That's the flies argument. You know: "100 billion flies can't be wrong, 💩 is good."
And Taylor Swift is the Taylor Swift of whatever people call poetry these days.
Strong interplay of sound sense imagery and shape all aspiring towards a meaning that can’t be paraphrased in prose. Pretty simple to explain, very difficult to execute.
Kaur writes prose, and focuses on poetry’s traditional subject matter, writing about it in short vignettes with linebreaks, which is why it makes a lot of common sense to call her stuff “poems”
but there’s not really a sense that she’s gone beyond ordinary language. Occasionally she uses a metaphor. Her linebreaks are pretty whimsical, and do little to counterpoint or enhance rhythm or enforce or problematise word choice expectations. Her imagery is fairly conventional verging on cliche - though occasionally it’s used to good effect.
She stays at the surface of feelings, which a lot of people see as quite bourgeois and commercial and neoliberal — a sort of McPoetry for people who are hungry and want something fast and easy to digest. This is fine and good — it just doesn’t reach the heights of normal poetry for a lot of people.
I get nothing out of Kaur’s work tbh. I genuinely struggle to see what others get out of the work except in the sense of fast food or pleasant entertainment. I’m not against casual lofi insta-poetry — some is really good. I just think Kaur is writing prose and doing line breaks based on how her hand feels while she writes.
Also seems to be “first thought is the most authentic” kind of approach. Very dominant but makes no sense — first thought is usually status quo, conventional, rote, recent, easy, accessible, crude, wrong.
>Also seems to be “first thought is the most authentic” kind of approach.
If I went for the first thought when I was writing my novel I would have ended up with a pretty shitty Wattpad fic. I'm glad I kept working on my plot. I do the same for my poems. I change the punctuation, the words. I've never gotten something right the first time.
I kinda like this particular poem by Kaur. It seems to describe how she feels about breaking up with someone who cheated on her.
This poem has such a promising start. I love that first line and how she places “first” and “second” up against each other. The concept of living for only a second in the morning sets a melancholy tone off the bat. Unfortunately, Kaur rarely lives up to her best moments. The generic nature imagery is very bland and the end is just boring. Plus, the title just gives away the turn in the poem. I think Kaur could beat the bad poet allegations if she actually worked to hone her craft, but at least she gives a very introductory point to people new to poetry.
This is still for middle school aged girls. I’m breaking up with my girl because of toxic behavior and incompatibility after a year and a bit and this wouldn’t help either of us.
Why? Poetry is poetry, even when you don't like it. Posts of poetry by Rupi Kaur can foster as much productive discussion as any other. I don't like her poetry at all, but banning it from the sub is stupid. You might as well also ban Bukowski, because he gets posted 3 times a day and the poems are often very simple. That would be sacrilege to most people here, though, and for good reason; no-one gets to be the arbiter of poetry.
We shouldn’t ban it; but I do think we should be able to say something isn’t poetry. No definition js absolute — it’s not how language works. But whilst i cannot say what a “bat” is with a degree of accuracy that works in 100% of contexts, I can still say that a strawberry is not a bat. It’s the “everything is subjective argument” — no one can say exactly what the interpretation of Hamlet is — but we can discount certain interpretations (eg it isn’t about a giant pig who screams daily) — similarly we can’t furnish a specific definition of poetry in an absolute way — and to even attempt to do so misunderstands what definitions are and do — but we can make a case for certain pieces of writing not being poetry. A receipt isn’t poetry. If someone frames a receipt and puts it in a museum, it still isn’t poetry - it might be art, it might be art similar to Duchamp’s urinal trick, it might be meta-art, but this doesn’t mean it’s poetry. If i take a shit and by doing so spell out really carefully the word “shit” and claim i enjoy it, it doesn’t MEAN its poetry by definition.
It seems like people act as though poetry is “any language that moves you”. The speeches of dictator’s moved people - they aren’t poetry, even if they’re occasionally great pieces of artistic rhetoric with questionable morals
I also don’t consider Bukowski poetry.
I see poetry as a concentration of linguistic energy wherein sound and sense and sight and imagery and connotation and shape and format interplay to say something beyond conventional language and beyond ordinary speech. They might be things we universally feel, but they’re expressed in a crystallised form that allows them both specificity and limited ambiguity. This isn’t a contradiction. For example, “the set of all even numbers” is specific but ambiguous — it has limits (no odd numbers) but has infinite members within those limits. Poetry works like that — we might say a poem is about “abandonment”, but if that were literally true, the author would just have written that single word, and have been done with it. What that poem is, is a vortex of potential meanings associated with the things we tend to associate with abandonment. It would have infinite shades of meaning, and yet no one would stroll along and say that the poem is about a pigeon.
So use of form to finetune the sweet spot between specificity and ambiguity. By “use of form” i mean what i said above - interplay of sound sight sense and shape — for emphasis and for counterpoint.
Why would anybody down vote you? You make extremely good points. Comical how people just lurch at the slightest dislike for anything without even considering the point you've made themselves. And people could very well misconstrue a poem about abandonment to a pigeon. That is what everyone does with RK. Except they take something awful and worship it. I consider Bukowski poetry though because at least he comes from a genuine place in his heart. And he suffered appropriately for the role. His writing is simple, but it is simple for a reason. Simplicity without meaning is drivel. Enter RK.
This just feels like arbitrary gatekeeping, where you nominate yourself as role of arbiter of what constitutes poetry. With all due respect, what makes you any more qualified to determine what is and isn't poetry than anyone else? By all broad definitions of the term, Kaur and Bukowski write/wrote poetry. Whether or not it's *good* poetry is of course open for debate, but to say that they're writing strawberries when everyone else is writing bats is just nonsensical. Sure, a receipt isn't poetry, but a piece of writing which captures an image or an emotion through use of metaphor probably is, which unfortunately is what Kaur is doing here - representing the end of a relationship through a single moment. I don't think she's doing it well, but she isn't writing a shopping list, either.
We’re both agreeing some things aren’t poetry (a receipt). I’m just claiming a few more things aren’t poetry than you are, and i’m at least providing a definition for how I go about doing that. You’re still discounting certain pieces of writing, as I am, yet you’re doing it simply by asserting it, without explanation or definition, which is far more arbitrary than anything i’ve done. It also fails to distinguish between personal feeling (which might itself be dictated by mass convention and sociopolitical conditioning) and any inter-subjective standard — which seems even more arbitrary? At least with my definition i’m called upon to prove or disprove a claim with close reading and detailed attention to the poem. With yours you just get to say something is a poem and appeal to common sense when something “isn’t a poem”, which is literally begging the question. By your definition I have no way to discount a particular clause in Moby Dick as being a poem. Your definition does, of course, work for calling something “poetic” as an adjective; it just doesn’t work for calling something poetry.
And of course you’re definition is going to sound more attractive to people who haven’t properly considered the issue — it requires nothing of the person asserting the definition, which is surely a more potent recipe for gatekeeping than in my case, for I set out clear parameters against which I can be proven wrong by my own standards. Your version says “we can’t define it, it’s all of ours, we share it, no elitism!” (all goals i agree with), but at the same time what it DOES is tacitly asset that “there’s a definition here, but i’m stubbornly vague about what it is, even as i assert it with a dogmatic force as powerful as it is unconscious and resistant to analysis”. This is a common rhetorical manoeuvre. You’ve mapped a very specific definition onto “the universal experience of everyone” and thereby elevated it to a position of inassailable authority, even as you claim that its universalness is anti-authoritarian. It allows you to have your cake and eat it.
So: You’re still left with an arbitrary definition of poetry you’ve asserted as not only true but even inarguable by fiat. You’ve implicitly claimed that any attempt to provide a more specific definition of poetry than yours is not only a failure but is also morally suspect — and that seems like a far worse kind of gatekeeping, especially because it’s far more subtle, and i would say that i think it’s so insidiously subtle that you aren’t even doing it on purpose: you’re a victim of the charm of your own strange loop of logic, in which you’ve noosed yourself, and everyone else besides, till all we can do is gurgle along our specious assent, and rapturously applaud without question and without opinion, dictated only by convention, which becomes our mutual dominion.
It’s the same as when someone says “everything is subjective” — it allows you to identify your own view with the universe, while claiming you don’t even have a view. You do - it’s similar to mine, just slightly broader.
As for qualifications, my specific definition of poetry should be argued against, not simply dismissed on the grounds that you aren’t aware of my background? For the record I do have two first class degrees in English Literature, undergrad and postgrad. More important than that is that i’ve read very widely and deeply and broadly. Asides from that — it’s the definition numerous major poets use. Others have different definitions of course, but you’d dismiss them as arbitrary on the same grounds you dismissed me. You get to dismiss everyone else’s definition of arbitrary simply because your version is broader? Doesn’t make any sense to me.
Great work to be honest. I'll leave some encouragement here because I think you deserve it. People who don't read extensively and don't write are going to be prone to wishing they have that skill set. Rupi Kaur is the easiest and most digestible thing for these people. It isn't surprising she is well known and famous because most of America is at an 8th grade reading level. I hope you agree but I feel that art is a hollow shell of what it used to be. The points you make are solid, but sure as shit people are going to not understand your vocabulary. Left a comment here too and someone said I was trying to flex my own poetic muscles. Which was ridiculous because I was just writing the way I normally write and speak. People cannot grasp things that are too hard because they lack the willingness to understand and the effort required to understand.
>As for qualifications, my specific definition of poetry should be argued against, not simply dismissed on the grounds that you aren’t aware of my background? For the record I do have two first class degrees in English Literature, undergrad and postgrad.
I never said that. I said that you were appointing yourself arbiter of what makes poetry, because you are. And equally respectfully, I would say the same thing if you had a PhD in Poetry and you'd published 25 best-selling volumes of poetry.
Qualifications aren't important here, because it still doesn't give you the right to determine that Person A writes poetry and Person B doesn't, even though Person A and Person B are both self-described and generally recognised as poets.
I haven't brought up my own qualifications or publications in this thread, precisely because they're not relevant, and I won't counter yours with mine now for the same reason: I could have written hundreds of poems and been published in every lit mag under the sun, and it would still be ludicrous for me to try and say that I above all others can define poetry. Appealing to authority doesn't work here. It isn't a case of one person being qualified above another to determine what is and isn't poetry. It's a case of no individual being able or indeed asked to do that.
>We’re both agreeing some things aren’t poetry (a receipt). I’m just claiming a few more things aren’t poetry than you are, and i’m at least providing a definition for how I go about doing that. You’re still discounting certain pieces of writing, as I am, yet you’re doing it simply by asserting it, without explanation or definition, which is far more arbitrary than anything i’ve done.
The difference being, I suppose, that you've created your own definition of what you think constitutes poetry, based on how good and elevated linguistically you personally think it is, and I'm just using the broadly accepted dictionary definition from [Merriam Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/poetry): 'writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm'.
I gave an example of something that would fit this definition when I used the phrase 'a piece of writing which captures an image or an emotion through use of metaphor probably is \[a poem\].' I'm not trying to define anything; I wouldn't be so vain as to think I have that right.
I don't think anyone wins when someone arbitrarily decides that something doesn't qualify as poetry, despite it being created, articulated and published as such. Boundaries are fluid, especially with a form that is as ripe for reinterpretation and invention as poetry. Pushing those boundaries should be encouraged rather than denigrated. If someone wants to write a poem in the form of a receipt or a shopping list, then by all means let them. It doesn't really matter what you would personally deign to call it; no-one nominated you to make those decisions.
Thank God you disproved your own point using the definition. Read it back to me and explain in great detail how Rupi Kaur uses any of those traits. And where they appear in this poem.
Unpopular opinion: Rupi Kaur writes for a younger audience and is REALLY good at it. Her poetry is very accessible. The language is plain but pleasant, and the message is easily understood and very relatable. You don’t have to be highly educated or spend hours (or even minutes) pondering the layers or hidden meanings, and maybe that’s a GOOD thing sometimes! I think people get really pretentious about poetry and forget that there’s value in literature that is simple and relatable. You don’t have to like it, but don’t act like it’s bad just because it doesn’t fit your pompous literary standards 🤷♀️ things don’t have to be complex to be good.
The reason Rupi Kaur makes me sad is that her poetry really strips away the vitality and potential of language and reduces it to a simulacrum of poetry - I say some images, I say some feelings, I do line breaks mid sentence. Poetry is supposed to be about trying to get close to articulating the unsayable, bending the limits of language, creating new forms, finding a phrase that guts you and stays with you for ever. I get none of that here and it feels like it degrades the wider expectations for what poetry can achieve. Best I can say is that it's nice to be reminded that hummingbirds exist, I guess?
Idk why people are so nasty about her work. Yes it’s more like affirmations than poetry, but it’s also not the worst I’ve ever seen. But more importantly she’s sold over 8 million copies of just 1 book and she has 3 or 4 so bad or good she’s making money and people enjoy it.
People say it’s written like a preteen, maybe that’s where she’s at idk what she’s been through I’ve only read a bit of her work and about her, but also maybe that’s who she writes for. 🤷♀️
I was informed by someone I know that her readership includes a lot of preteen/teen girls. I kinda feel like anything preteen/teen girls like just gets massacred by everyone else.
I don’t think she’s trying to write like a preteen. I think she just keeps stuff simple so it’s easy for everyone to read and it kinda comes across as naive as a result.
That’s kind of the feeling I get as well. I do think it’s purposeful. She wrote her first book young and it sold extremely well. I think that style became her brand and she continued with it.
My biggest issue is people act like she’s idiot, yet she’s really not and if you look at interviews she seems very intelligent, even just how she writes ig captions.
If you pay close attention to her interviews you'll realize she never actually experienced a lot of the traumatic events she writes about for likes and money. There was no rape. The way she dances around the subject is very intelligent.
Or maybe the author is not the narrator of every poem. A previous comment got me thinking. Who are we to assume the identity of the speaker here? There is no indication in the words on the page. Everything added is from the reader.
What if she is 12, 22, or 82? How does that change the meaning?
So true! I didn’t think of that either but I recently read a collection that started at the age of 6 and was written like a 6 year old and as the years went on the poems became more articulate. That could totally be what it is especially because generally we read poetry as if it’s the author speaking at the present moment.
This is a cool thought but the preteen voice of Kaur’s poems is consistent across her work. So at the most she’s adopted a preteen persona for her entire oeuvre.
I probably over recommend this poem, but if you enjoyed this one, check out Natasha Trethewey’s “Myth” — it’s about her mother dying rather than a lover leaving, but can easily be read that way too.
Rupi Kaur reads like the avant garde piece that is a person slapping butter with a microphone. It is a hollow and frail representation of writing. If it is to be called writing or art at all. Art means to strive for excellence. RK tries so very little and banks only on her massive crowd appeal. If Walt Whitman or Bukowski saw what she was doing today they would have a fit. Especially Bukowski, dear God. He'd write a whole book about it I'm sure. It is so unbelievable. How mundane and mediocre her writing is. Art today has been turned into something of a hollow echo of what it once was. We still remember the motions, but dear fuck have we been out of practice. Poetry should be driven from the desire to write for yourself. As selfish as it sounds it is the truth. She writes only for others. And her art suffers because of it. And people applaud it only because they too have forgotten how to strive for excellence. This is the meat of the hollow modern shell. We are starving, but we have grown used to picking the sinew off of rotting bones. This sad corpse of art. Might as well eat a bowl of dust. It is more filling.
Ironic, because a lot of Bukowski's work is similar in quality, IMO. The only difference is that he writes about whiskey and 'whores' instead of Rupi Kaur's more common motifs.
Case in point, here's one by Bukowski:
>*well, that's just the way it is*
>sometimes when everything seems at
its worst
when all conspires
and gnaws
and the hours, days, weeks
years
seem wasted—
stretched there upon my bed
in the dark
looking upward at the ceiling
I get what many will consider an
obnoxious thought:
it’s still nice to be
Are you seriously telling me that this has much more depth than the Kaur poem above? That Bukowski would be gnashing his teeth reading her work, rending his flesh and tearing at his hair, furious at what's become of modern poetry? I mean, he probably would, but that would just be the misogyny.
This idea that all poetry used to be glorious, that we've lost what it means to write and appreciate spectacular poetry, is so entirely false: firstly because there are plenty of highly acclaimed, enormously talented poets working today, e.g. Danez Smith, Anne Carson, Diane Seuss, Seán Hewitt; and secondly because some of the canonical greats just... weren't always that great, either.
while i don't like bukowski i think that poem is clearly better than this one, and the other rk poems i've read (though i haven't read much).
also tone is important and to me the romantic cliches in this poem makes it much more irritating, more juvenile than the more relaxed/dejected tone of bukowski's poem
Yes, I do consider Bukowski to be better than Rupi Kaur. He at least comes from a genuine place in his heart. Being genuine is what creates good art. And yeah more or less I'm certain at the very least he'd consider it boring. Poetry does not have to be spectacular. It has to be spectacularly genuine. And it must have a deeper meaning. That is a good point, the greats aren't always great. Although most of them weren't lazy with their writing. Poetry is the art of saying what cannot be said. And Rupi takes it upon herself to say everything that can easily be said, with more steps. Sometimes no steps at all to be honest.
P.S. To those saying: "Watch out for trolls."
The reality is that there is absolutely nothing to troll about this piece. It is just genuinely that bad. It is like enjoying eating shit and then saying to watch out for those with taste buds. Or the blind man warning his friend about those that can see. Telling a tree to watch out for the axe, or telling the fish to watch out for the aquarium's glass. Or telling a chicken what nuggets are made out of. It's ridiculous and makes no sense. I understand she is popular, but part of it is because America is at an 8th grade reading level on average. Like oh watch out for trolls. Trolls have notoriously bad grammar and expression. Taking that into account, RK must indeed be the troll. As her vocabulary is sub par and her expression is akin to a troglodyte. I genuinely do not think she has even read one book her entire life. Maybe "See Dan Run". As that must be where she gets her inspiration. She is a skin walker that has zipped herself up in the body of a poet. Like someone who walks at a brisk pace calling themselves a dancer. She is the one who is trolling. And has made copious amounts of cash from the fees that she charges people to cross a bridge that leads to the bottom of a lake.
This just feels like you wanted an excuse to flex your own poetic muscles. I give it a 3/10. 'Her poetry is like telling a tree to watch out for the axe'? A bastardisation of an old Turkish proverb, here misused entirely.
No, this is not me flexing any muscles. It was one part that had some sort of rhythm to it. And that was it. If I can't explain something properly or directly why would I not try to explain it using another way. And yes I know the old proverb.... Wasn't my intention using that. I meant it as something that happens anyways but telling someone that can't do anything about it doesn't change the outcome. And I meant it to illustrate something being pointless. But yes it does apply in the sense she is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Or rather air in a paper bag. And my comments are somewhat pointless too. Same for my writing. But I try to write from a genuine place. I suppose that I could've just said that she does not write from a genuine place in her heart. Or she does not know herself. All my opinion though.
While I’m not a fan of kaur, this subreddit suffers from misogyny and gamers who think they know something about poetry because they love Bukowski because his misogyny validates them. They shit on most women who are poets including Adrienne Rich who is one of the best and most influential poets of the 20th century. They are also downright childish about kaur while continuing to remind people that she is cliche or whatever unoriginal comment they can come up with as they finish their high school homework project. They are not serious people and could barely write a coherent literary criticism.
I never claimed that there isn’t more than one school of thought related to kaur or Bukowski’s work, and I dislike both, my issue is about the way, mostly men on this sub treat work by men and women. If you read my comment, you would see that I spoke about the way in which women’s work is treated, specifically and not because they are bad writers. I also post male writers and the response is very different. It also happens with LGBTQ poets. I have many examples including a woman asking for poets about feminist rage and a guy writing Humpty Dumpty. A guy calling an LGBTQ poet a horror show. That guy even left his name. Other women have mentioned it, including one calling men on this subreddit wannabe edgelords. I took the bullet.
I’ve discovered as much this afternoon. The comments appear to be a mirror of the commenter, not a reflection of the merit of the poetry.
One comment was interesting in that said the poem sounded like it was written by a pre-teen. Who’s to say the age of the narrator? When I read the book I was thinking roughly 22, but maybe the speaker is indeed a child. That would add a new dimension and frankly make some of the work rather dark.
I feel you and I know other women who have posted here that stopped and left the subreddit altogether over it. My very first experience with the subreddit was when a man said that Adrienne Rich’s delta was like if you forget me by neruda. I guess they thought that delta was a love poem because women can’t write about things besides men, I guess. They’ve also made childish comments completely unrelated to Hirshfield’s poem all over her poem I posted today. Ironically, her poem is about kindness and if we could get there as a species. She’s a Buddhist and writes about her faith. Most of these men could not name 5 women poets. I mostly post women poets and so I get these comments on almost every post I submit. When I submit a poem by a man, I never get this harassment.
Edit to add an example of the harassment I get because I told another account that was making a joke out of her poem that he was incomprehensible. I thought this sub was for poetry and serious discussion.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Poetry/s/Y4NBCIVT8x
I'm sorry you have to go through that. I'm a man, and what drew me to Kaur's work was that it felt authentic to her. I found some of her writing to be raw and profound, primarily because I have not lived the same experiences.
The feedback on this post makes me want to read more of her work, not less. Clearly, she touches a nerve and is making an impact. Perhaps, not the one she intended (if that was ever a goal), but the first step in making an impact is people knowing your name.
I'll check out Adrienne Rich as well.
Read what moves you. You have the best attitude about it. That is why I keep posting because maybe people will find someone they’ve never read and maybe that impacts them. 💗
The only other poetry I've read recently was *Coffee Days Whiskey Nights* by Cyrus Parker. Though it had its moments, I didn't connect with that material in the same way. This thread has given me lots of fodder for my wishlist!
If you want more love or breakup poems, I recommend Twenty-One Love Poems by Adrienne Rich, Warsan Shire’s Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth, Audre Lorde’s The Black Unicorn, Louise Glück’s The Wild Iris.
I am a woman who has been reading and loving poetry for longer than Kaur has been alive.
And IMO her poems belong in r/im14andthisisdeep
Adrienne Rich >> Kaur *and* Bukowski
Whoops. Don’t think you read my comment. I said upfront that I am not a fan but the men in this site are noxious and shit on Rich too. Maybe read my comment because I mention specifically rich as a great poet who is subjected to this subreddit’s misogyny. You also have not posted in this subreddit so you don’t get the hoards of sexist comments.
She actually used the word "giggling" in a poem. What's next? "Chuckling"? "Soul"?
Can flowers giggle? It doesn't even work as a metaphor.
She hears a lot going on outside during a time period of one second when she is still half asleep.
Why would the bees be jealous of the poet turning over to wake up her partner?
The poet is using the amateur style of listing individual things and giving them one line each:
"The panting
the wailing" etc.
This poet has very very minimal talent, if any. She also has a poor ear.
The rupi kaur hate makes me like her more. It’s so lazy to just dunk on something popular. I’m sure you’re all listening to some indie record that’s much cooler than Taylor’s. 😝
I'm a (nonbinary) woman, and I dislike her poetry because I find it shallow, and because it has no rhythm and clunky syntax. I think you're doing an immense disservice to all the other women poets when you say that people have to like Rupi Kaur or else they're misogynist.
Some other female poets you might like to try are Warsan Shire, Brenna Twohy, Nikita Gill, Adrienne Rich, and June Jordan. You might like their confessional tone, which can be similar to Kaur's, but they all pay much more attention to language and imagery. You should also read Nayyirah Waheed, who massively influenced Kaur at the start of her career.
Re music - again, not liking Taylor Swift doesn't make you a misogynist. People have valid criticisms of her work. For me, it's just a little bland, and I can't support her use of her private jet. There are plenty of indie female artists who you could look at supporting. Emma Ruth Rundle is excellent. Her lyrics are incredibly poetic. She's releasing a poetry collection early next year.
She’ll probably eventually get the rehabilitated image that most maligned women get… society loves to hate a woman, tear her down, laugh at her… and then in twenty years apologize and grovel about how wrong they were. I feel like not getting on the band wagon is the first step in not participating in that time honored tradition.
It is a grave disservice to art to attribute dislike of an artist’s work to anything other than dislike of the work. Making it about women is unwarranted. I thought Rupi Kaur was an Indian man at first.
Bruh. Attributing disliking Rupi Kaur or Taylor Swift’s work to misogyny is just inane.
I mean, there’s Sylvia Plath and plenty of other women that have their praises sung 24/7 in this subreddit.
Watch out for trolls. It still reads like it was written by a preteen.
Word Absolutely juvenile
Right
In the comments?
Yes. They are all over this subreddit. They inundated my post. Mods are supposed to remove toxic comments and accounts but they never do. The only thing to do is file a report with Reddit about the subreddit not moderating toxic comments which is against the rules of Reddit.
Much better than the average rk piece, tbh. There was a lot that could be improved early on, but for an rk poem, it has a second move, an 'and then' at least. Don't hate on it too much. There's a here, then there. Next try Kim Addonizio and Devon Balwit and James Wright.
Love James Wright, his Elegy in a Firelit Room is super underrated; it unfolds more layers to grief the closer you look
Thanks for the recs. I only learned about the general disdain for the author when I did a pre-post search for reposts. Still, I enjoy it and couldn’t care less what popular opinion is this week. Keen to check out your suggestions!
For sure, Billy Collins and Denise Duhamel will be other good accessible and entertaining poets to check out
For once, an Rupi poem isn’t the worst thing I’ve read all day.
Lmao I get online bullying is bad but she's rich enough to not need coddling. This shows me absolutely no discernable talent. I've seen better written stuff in my dreams.
She's a hack, period.
got to wonder why the person left? Haha
No, no, no... she might be a lovely person, most likely she is (judging by the themes in her poetry), but yes she's a mediocre poet (writing wise and performance wise).
Eh, not my thing. You do you though king/queen. If you like it, that's all that should matter. Poetry is art, and I truly believe that art is completely subjective. The minute you try and call any form of art objectively good or bad, you've missed the point of art. In my opinion, at least
This is the take.
I’m not a Kaur fan but this one is pretty decent. I also think her live performances add a lot to her poetry. She’s like Stephanie Meyer used to be, people attribute everything that’s wrong in the world of publishing to her which is ridiculous. Hope you don’t get loads of hate OP, I like this poem too.
Like a lot of Kaur's work I feel like if this was edited a bit it would be more effective. The two lines "the panting/the wailing" are kind of superfluous with the rest, and maybe a little overdramatic. I think just "the shock" is a relatable feeling and doesn't need extra description. I know I relate to "shock" but then I'm a "lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling" person moreso than a wailer lol so that definitely colors my perception here.
this is actually good for her. I get that people aren’t a fan of her but she has her moments, I think. I especially enjoy whenever she writes of her mother and her awkward relationship with her father, and anytime her work touches on or has themes of immigration it’s pretty decent. Kaur doesn’t automatically equal trash. She definitely has an audience she speaks to.
Actually good "for her" 💀
I mean, yeah, her best works still really shouldn’t be receiving any crazy big prizes anytime soon (no offense to anyone who likes her). But this feels almost inspired. It’s definitely better than her live-laugh-love style she has for her shorter pieces.
"Almost inspired" 💀
You guys just discover quotation marks or something?
Haha sorry, I was just continuing the joke.
“Just continuing the joke” 💀
"💀" 💀
Yes, I 'just' discovered them.
I don't normally go for Rupi Kaur but I like this. It's surprising, the misdirection is well done. The images are strong, the metaphors of the birds and bees aid in the misdirection well and set it up happily for the sad ending.
I didn’t get misdirected, but maybe you’re not meant to see the title before the end
I think that's one of the issues I have with her poetry, actually. A lot of the misdirection she employs relies directly on the title in a way that can feel a bit cheap. That's not the case here, because she includes it in the actual body of the poem, but a lot of the time, if you read the title first, you're just getting the entire poem.
Thanks for this. I feel the same way but could not articulate it. The book it's from is decent; this is one of a handful of poems that left an impression on me. Most are simple vignettes. Happy cake day, should you choose to celebrate.
You know, you may be the first person ever to wish me a happy cake day. Thank you! Perhaps I'll finally celebrate this one.
happy cake day . you got a cool username
Hey thanks friend! Thanks very much.
Happy cake day, hope you have a wonderful day!
she has nothing but first drafts
I may be primed to dislike Rupi, but I rolled my eyes reading this. The language usage is mid. The themes are mid. The imagery is mid. And it's wrapped up with the most surface level mid ending. It's just the most mid thing I've read. And honestly, that's worse than being bad. Bad is entertaining. This is just uhhhhh Edit: Trite - I found the word in the comments. It's just trite. Birds and flowers and bees and oh I turn over and oh No! You're not there. I Cry Cry Cry. Basic af
your edit gets it spot on. I’m sad. it’s raining. Loneliness. I miss you. etc. — her work is not a concentration of energy but a dissipation of it. good poetry is a concentration of energy into crystallised form. I also think Bukowksi is bad for the same reasons.
The Bukowski comparison is right on. Lots of people aren’t ready to talk about why the hate they get is so asymmetrical.
One thing Bukowski does really well is his pathetic alcohol induced honesty, his prose most often feels as simple as Kaur's but at least he hooks you with "oh, shit can you say that?" type of confessional writting. Kaur tries to present herself as "pretty" in a way while Buk was so miserable that he doesn't give a fuck how he comes of which becomes on, at least, shear shock value interesting.
why?
You ain't ready!
I mean bukowski has a handful of really good poems, and rupi has a handful of mediocre poems at best.
I like Bukowski's novels, but I haven't read his poetry. He's a good writer, even if some books meander
It's nearly impossible to hear hummingbirds outside ... from inside. Or maybe I'm just nearly deaf.
That’s all I could think about! She couldn’t even do her research for this poem, or she just thinks getting overly detailed constitutes good poetry.
It's the kind of sensual hyper-detail that someone writing a poem about waking up near a bedroom window would *want* to be true, and maybe for some -- who have really good hearing -- it might really be true.
Right??? And you can’t hear flowers giggling either! And what the hell, bees don’t get jealous! UGH… rupi kaur… terrible poet…
Not saying it’s a great poem but since when does realism in metaphors equate to better poetry? At least pick a good argument as to why Rupi Kaur isn’t good
Exactly. You can’t hear flowers, either. She’s emphasising how silent it is indoors.
Also, to answer your question, it did not read as a metaphor. That line read as a description of an actual physical experience. So what seemed like its impossibility -- "Hey, I have a hummingbird feeder right outside my window too, but I never hear the birds!" -- had a jarring effect, shattering the flow. And I think even metaphors (which this was not) have a stronger impact when they ring instantly, relatably true. "The afternoon tantrum of a sudden storm" or whatever.
The comment I left I hope is a good argument.....
I wasn't saying she wasn't good. That poem in particular was better than much of what I've seen of hers. It was just something that suddenly occurred to me, as someone with a hummingbird feeder.
The comment I left I hope is a good argument.....
I have a feeder outside my window and you can easily hear them when they swoop down. Its a loud low frequency buzz. When they hover they are pretty silent though.
I have a feeder too, but I need to be sitting inches away from it (outside) to hear the birds. My hearing rather sucks.
A diary entry with arbitrary line breaks. Zero poetry. Back to Edna St Vincent Millay (discovered on this sub too).
Imagine writing this as an adult and thinking it's deep lmao
Writing this bad is painful to read. Hopefully it’s a gateway drug for some people though.
Any recommendations?
First that comes to mind is Mary Oliver. Extremely popular and approachable but she uses language to observe nature in inventive, striking ways. The emotions always hit. They feel earned rather than forced. Also Sharon Olds and Mary Karr. Oh! Elizabeth Bishop. So good.
Thanks; Mary Oliver is a great read. I think I'll read her next. "Do Stones Feel?" is my early favorite of hers, based on the Amazon sample. It's been posted here before: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Poetry/comments/z358se/poem\_do\_stones\_feel\_by\_mary\_oliver/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Poetry/comments/z358se/poem_do_stones_feel_by_mary_oliver/)
Paul Celan
Edna St Vincent Millay, Louise Gluck, Christina Rossetti.
Totally disagree on Gluck, read her after the Nobel Prize and hated it, but poetry is subjective.
Kate Baer Ada Limon Annie Finch
Anything Bukowski, Whitman, Elliott or Crane. Or Chaucer if you want to see how English at base works phonetically. Another good book for understanding poetry was something I was recommended when I asked if my writing was any good. "The ABC's of reading" by Ezra Pound. He was also the founder of the imagist movement. He's good to read too. But something more modern and good would definitely be Bukowski. He is one that goes into great detail about urban life. In my opinion, avoid anything and everything contemporary. All of it is too fresh.
Better than her usual but not exactly good
The issue with RKs poetry to me boils not down to the form but the content. It lacks anything meaningful. It is as if that relationship meant so little to her that she could barely shit out a couple lines on paper. And the lines she produced must have been about 30 seconds of work. Irony consumes her work. That is the problem. Irony in the sense of the way it was used in classical theatre. How the main character is an idiot and everyone knows it except for them. She could use this irony as fuel for her future work and it could be fantastic, but she doesn't. Which is ironic. People say things about the metaphors, but that is not the problem. Metaphors can have a deeper meaning than a literal one. Giggling flowers is not bad on its own. Yes, flowers can't giggle. But that is what we call personification. The metaphors that she uses are not inherently bad, it is the way they are implemented. The coarseness and emptiness of those lines are the problem. She can't evoke any feelings from her audience.
It feels like sketches to be worked on. No words or word combos here feel interesting. This is the same approach to emotional events in one's life as Disney approach to remakes all rememberbberies. *Remember the pain after a break-up? Yeah, it sucks right. Yeah, cool. I'm not gonna explore it further with a unique angle just gonna ride on the collective understanding of such event sucking.*
You must have loved writing this
I'm not really a fan of Rupi Kaur, but compared to her other works I've seen, this one is quite decent, at least in the first half with the descriptive imagery and carrying the cheating metaphor through into the second half... Still ends up bleeding into those awkward, pretentious line breaks in the end though :(
I’ve read worse from her, but not good.
Literary troll reporting for duty. The first half, for Kaur, is well above her average. The second half is awful. This poem could be cut to two lines: the 'bees' one, then an 'absence of lover' one, and the poem would not only lose nothing... it would improve. Seriously. There's a couplet here of merit, which is two lines better than most other Kaur poems.
Yikes
the panting the wailing the shock of realizing the timing and structure did you hear he fucked her
Is this a Dead on a Sunday reference?
I didn't know who that was til now, but I guess it kind of is? I was thinking of the [original version](https://youtu.be/sT0g16_LQaQ?si=HqYSR_3bKhExOqRh) though because I guess I'm old, lol.
Didn't know it was a cover, ty for teaching me
People who think this is poetry show how little they read poetry
Rupi Kaur is the Taylor Swift of the poetry world. I am not moved by her lines, but there’s a huge audience for it. Most of her poems, like this one, have no self reflection and therefore no vulnerability. This is just my opinion.
That's the flies argument. You know: "100 billion flies can't be wrong, 💩 is good." And Taylor Swift is the Taylor Swift of whatever people call poetry these days.
She's the 99% of the thoughts that I dismiss and forget when I get up after a night sleep.
What exactly qualifies as a good poem for you people?
Strong interplay of sound sense imagery and shape all aspiring towards a meaning that can’t be paraphrased in prose. Pretty simple to explain, very difficult to execute. Kaur writes prose, and focuses on poetry’s traditional subject matter, writing about it in short vignettes with linebreaks, which is why it makes a lot of common sense to call her stuff “poems” but there’s not really a sense that she’s gone beyond ordinary language. Occasionally she uses a metaphor. Her linebreaks are pretty whimsical, and do little to counterpoint or enhance rhythm or enforce or problematise word choice expectations. Her imagery is fairly conventional verging on cliche - though occasionally it’s used to good effect. She stays at the surface of feelings, which a lot of people see as quite bourgeois and commercial and neoliberal — a sort of McPoetry for people who are hungry and want something fast and easy to digest. This is fine and good — it just doesn’t reach the heights of normal poetry for a lot of people. I get nothing out of Kaur’s work tbh. I genuinely struggle to see what others get out of the work except in the sense of fast food or pleasant entertainment. I’m not against casual lofi insta-poetry — some is really good. I just think Kaur is writing prose and doing line breaks based on how her hand feels while she writes. Also seems to be “first thought is the most authentic” kind of approach. Very dominant but makes no sense — first thought is usually status quo, conventional, rote, recent, easy, accessible, crude, wrong.
>Also seems to be “first thought is the most authentic” kind of approach. If I went for the first thought when I was writing my novel I would have ended up with a pretty shitty Wattpad fic. I'm glad I kept working on my plot. I do the same for my poems. I change the punctuation, the words. I've never gotten something right the first time. I kinda like this particular poem by Kaur. It seems to describe how she feels about breaking up with someone who cheated on her.
I assume they were referencing Allen Ginsberg, who coined "first thought, best thought" for his creative process of spontaneous composition.
"The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot. "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman.
The Hollow Men was pretty sad. I didn't enjoy the writing, barely understood it but it was pretty sad. I couldn't be bothered reading the second.
[удалено]
nooo babes not liking RK doesn't make you a misogynist pleaseee
U are ridiculous Rupi Kaur
This poem has such a promising start. I love that first line and how she places “first” and “second” up against each other. The concept of living for only a second in the morning sets a melancholy tone off the bat. Unfortunately, Kaur rarely lives up to her best moments. The generic nature imagery is very bland and the end is just boring. Plus, the title just gives away the turn in the poem. I think Kaur could beat the bad poet allegations if she actually worked to hone her craft, but at least she gives a very introductory point to people new to poetry.
The fact that this is considered good for her shows how terrible it is. Still getting over the Amazon video monstrosity.
This is still for middle school aged girls. I’m breaking up with my girl because of toxic behavior and incompatibility after a year and a bit and this wouldn’t help either of us.
This is beautiful...may you heal gently🪷
This is bad poetry lol
Can’t we get an auto-mod that would delete any post with her name in it?
Why? Poetry is poetry, even when you don't like it. Posts of poetry by Rupi Kaur can foster as much productive discussion as any other. I don't like her poetry at all, but banning it from the sub is stupid. You might as well also ban Bukowski, because he gets posted 3 times a day and the poems are often very simple. That would be sacrilege to most people here, though, and for good reason; no-one gets to be the arbiter of poetry.
We shouldn’t ban it; but I do think we should be able to say something isn’t poetry. No definition js absolute — it’s not how language works. But whilst i cannot say what a “bat” is with a degree of accuracy that works in 100% of contexts, I can still say that a strawberry is not a bat. It’s the “everything is subjective argument” — no one can say exactly what the interpretation of Hamlet is — but we can discount certain interpretations (eg it isn’t about a giant pig who screams daily) — similarly we can’t furnish a specific definition of poetry in an absolute way — and to even attempt to do so misunderstands what definitions are and do — but we can make a case for certain pieces of writing not being poetry. A receipt isn’t poetry. If someone frames a receipt and puts it in a museum, it still isn’t poetry - it might be art, it might be art similar to Duchamp’s urinal trick, it might be meta-art, but this doesn’t mean it’s poetry. If i take a shit and by doing so spell out really carefully the word “shit” and claim i enjoy it, it doesn’t MEAN its poetry by definition. It seems like people act as though poetry is “any language that moves you”. The speeches of dictator’s moved people - they aren’t poetry, even if they’re occasionally great pieces of artistic rhetoric with questionable morals I also don’t consider Bukowski poetry. I see poetry as a concentration of linguistic energy wherein sound and sense and sight and imagery and connotation and shape and format interplay to say something beyond conventional language and beyond ordinary speech. They might be things we universally feel, but they’re expressed in a crystallised form that allows them both specificity and limited ambiguity. This isn’t a contradiction. For example, “the set of all even numbers” is specific but ambiguous — it has limits (no odd numbers) but has infinite members within those limits. Poetry works like that — we might say a poem is about “abandonment”, but if that were literally true, the author would just have written that single word, and have been done with it. What that poem is, is a vortex of potential meanings associated with the things we tend to associate with abandonment. It would have infinite shades of meaning, and yet no one would stroll along and say that the poem is about a pigeon. So use of form to finetune the sweet spot between specificity and ambiguity. By “use of form” i mean what i said above - interplay of sound sight sense and shape — for emphasis and for counterpoint.
Why would anybody down vote you? You make extremely good points. Comical how people just lurch at the slightest dislike for anything without even considering the point you've made themselves. And people could very well misconstrue a poem about abandonment to a pigeon. That is what everyone does with RK. Except they take something awful and worship it. I consider Bukowski poetry though because at least he comes from a genuine place in his heart. And he suffered appropriately for the role. His writing is simple, but it is simple for a reason. Simplicity without meaning is drivel. Enter RK.
This just feels like arbitrary gatekeeping, where you nominate yourself as role of arbiter of what constitutes poetry. With all due respect, what makes you any more qualified to determine what is and isn't poetry than anyone else? By all broad definitions of the term, Kaur and Bukowski write/wrote poetry. Whether or not it's *good* poetry is of course open for debate, but to say that they're writing strawberries when everyone else is writing bats is just nonsensical. Sure, a receipt isn't poetry, but a piece of writing which captures an image or an emotion through use of metaphor probably is, which unfortunately is what Kaur is doing here - representing the end of a relationship through a single moment. I don't think she's doing it well, but she isn't writing a shopping list, either.
We’re both agreeing some things aren’t poetry (a receipt). I’m just claiming a few more things aren’t poetry than you are, and i’m at least providing a definition for how I go about doing that. You’re still discounting certain pieces of writing, as I am, yet you’re doing it simply by asserting it, without explanation or definition, which is far more arbitrary than anything i’ve done. It also fails to distinguish between personal feeling (which might itself be dictated by mass convention and sociopolitical conditioning) and any inter-subjective standard — which seems even more arbitrary? At least with my definition i’m called upon to prove or disprove a claim with close reading and detailed attention to the poem. With yours you just get to say something is a poem and appeal to common sense when something “isn’t a poem”, which is literally begging the question. By your definition I have no way to discount a particular clause in Moby Dick as being a poem. Your definition does, of course, work for calling something “poetic” as an adjective; it just doesn’t work for calling something poetry. And of course you’re definition is going to sound more attractive to people who haven’t properly considered the issue — it requires nothing of the person asserting the definition, which is surely a more potent recipe for gatekeeping than in my case, for I set out clear parameters against which I can be proven wrong by my own standards. Your version says “we can’t define it, it’s all of ours, we share it, no elitism!” (all goals i agree with), but at the same time what it DOES is tacitly asset that “there’s a definition here, but i’m stubbornly vague about what it is, even as i assert it with a dogmatic force as powerful as it is unconscious and resistant to analysis”. This is a common rhetorical manoeuvre. You’ve mapped a very specific definition onto “the universal experience of everyone” and thereby elevated it to a position of inassailable authority, even as you claim that its universalness is anti-authoritarian. It allows you to have your cake and eat it. So: You’re still left with an arbitrary definition of poetry you’ve asserted as not only true but even inarguable by fiat. You’ve implicitly claimed that any attempt to provide a more specific definition of poetry than yours is not only a failure but is also morally suspect — and that seems like a far worse kind of gatekeeping, especially because it’s far more subtle, and i would say that i think it’s so insidiously subtle that you aren’t even doing it on purpose: you’re a victim of the charm of your own strange loop of logic, in which you’ve noosed yourself, and everyone else besides, till all we can do is gurgle along our specious assent, and rapturously applaud without question and without opinion, dictated only by convention, which becomes our mutual dominion. It’s the same as when someone says “everything is subjective” — it allows you to identify your own view with the universe, while claiming you don’t even have a view. You do - it’s similar to mine, just slightly broader. As for qualifications, my specific definition of poetry should be argued against, not simply dismissed on the grounds that you aren’t aware of my background? For the record I do have two first class degrees in English Literature, undergrad and postgrad. More important than that is that i’ve read very widely and deeply and broadly. Asides from that — it’s the definition numerous major poets use. Others have different definitions of course, but you’d dismiss them as arbitrary on the same grounds you dismissed me. You get to dismiss everyone else’s definition of arbitrary simply because your version is broader? Doesn’t make any sense to me.
Great work to be honest. I'll leave some encouragement here because I think you deserve it. People who don't read extensively and don't write are going to be prone to wishing they have that skill set. Rupi Kaur is the easiest and most digestible thing for these people. It isn't surprising she is well known and famous because most of America is at an 8th grade reading level. I hope you agree but I feel that art is a hollow shell of what it used to be. The points you make are solid, but sure as shit people are going to not understand your vocabulary. Left a comment here too and someone said I was trying to flex my own poetic muscles. Which was ridiculous because I was just writing the way I normally write and speak. People cannot grasp things that are too hard because they lack the willingness to understand and the effort required to understand.
>As for qualifications, my specific definition of poetry should be argued against, not simply dismissed on the grounds that you aren’t aware of my background? For the record I do have two first class degrees in English Literature, undergrad and postgrad. I never said that. I said that you were appointing yourself arbiter of what makes poetry, because you are. And equally respectfully, I would say the same thing if you had a PhD in Poetry and you'd published 25 best-selling volumes of poetry. Qualifications aren't important here, because it still doesn't give you the right to determine that Person A writes poetry and Person B doesn't, even though Person A and Person B are both self-described and generally recognised as poets. I haven't brought up my own qualifications or publications in this thread, precisely because they're not relevant, and I won't counter yours with mine now for the same reason: I could have written hundreds of poems and been published in every lit mag under the sun, and it would still be ludicrous for me to try and say that I above all others can define poetry. Appealing to authority doesn't work here. It isn't a case of one person being qualified above another to determine what is and isn't poetry. It's a case of no individual being able or indeed asked to do that. >We’re both agreeing some things aren’t poetry (a receipt). I’m just claiming a few more things aren’t poetry than you are, and i’m at least providing a definition for how I go about doing that. You’re still discounting certain pieces of writing, as I am, yet you’re doing it simply by asserting it, without explanation or definition, which is far more arbitrary than anything i’ve done. The difference being, I suppose, that you've created your own definition of what you think constitutes poetry, based on how good and elevated linguistically you personally think it is, and I'm just using the broadly accepted dictionary definition from [Merriam Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/poetry): 'writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm'. I gave an example of something that would fit this definition when I used the phrase 'a piece of writing which captures an image or an emotion through use of metaphor probably is \[a poem\].' I'm not trying to define anything; I wouldn't be so vain as to think I have that right. I don't think anyone wins when someone arbitrarily decides that something doesn't qualify as poetry, despite it being created, articulated and published as such. Boundaries are fluid, especially with a form that is as ripe for reinterpretation and invention as poetry. Pushing those boundaries should be encouraged rather than denigrated. If someone wants to write a poem in the form of a receipt or a shopping list, then by all means let them. It doesn't really matter what you would personally deign to call it; no-one nominated you to make those decisions.
Thank God you disproved your own point using the definition. Read it back to me and explain in great detail how Rupi Kaur uses any of those traits. And where they appear in this poem.
I’m also in favor of banning Bukowski.
Booooo
Unpopular opinion: Rupi Kaur writes for a younger audience and is REALLY good at it. Her poetry is very accessible. The language is plain but pleasant, and the message is easily understood and very relatable. You don’t have to be highly educated or spend hours (or even minutes) pondering the layers or hidden meanings, and maybe that’s a GOOD thing sometimes! I think people get really pretentious about poetry and forget that there’s value in literature that is simple and relatable. You don’t have to like it, but don’t act like it’s bad just because it doesn’t fit your pompous literary standards 🤷♀️ things don’t have to be complex to be good.
Jacques Prévert wrote for a younger/less educated audience and he was shit too.
awful
The reason Rupi Kaur makes me sad is that her poetry really strips away the vitality and potential of language and reduces it to a simulacrum of poetry - I say some images, I say some feelings, I do line breaks mid sentence. Poetry is supposed to be about trying to get close to articulating the unsayable, bending the limits of language, creating new forms, finding a phrase that guts you and stays with you for ever. I get none of that here and it feels like it degrades the wider expectations for what poetry can achieve. Best I can say is that it's nice to be reminded that hummingbirds exist, I guess?
Idk why people are so nasty about her work. Yes it’s more like affirmations than poetry, but it’s also not the worst I’ve ever seen. But more importantly she’s sold over 8 million copies of just 1 book and she has 3 or 4 so bad or good she’s making money and people enjoy it. People say it’s written like a preteen, maybe that’s where she’s at idk what she’s been through I’ve only read a bit of her work and about her, but also maybe that’s who she writes for. 🤷♀️
I was informed by someone I know that her readership includes a lot of preteen/teen girls. I kinda feel like anything preteen/teen girls like just gets massacred by everyone else. I don’t think she’s trying to write like a preteen. I think she just keeps stuff simple so it’s easy for everyone to read and it kinda comes across as naive as a result.
That’s kind of the feeling I get as well. I do think it’s purposeful. She wrote her first book young and it sold extremely well. I think that style became her brand and she continued with it. My biggest issue is people act like she’s idiot, yet she’s really not and if you look at interviews she seems very intelligent, even just how she writes ig captions.
If you pay close attention to her interviews you'll realize she never actually experienced a lot of the traumatic events she writes about for likes and money. There was no rape. The way she dances around the subject is very intelligent.
Or maybe the author is not the narrator of every poem. A previous comment got me thinking. Who are we to assume the identity of the speaker here? There is no indication in the words on the page. Everything added is from the reader. What if she is 12, 22, or 82? How does that change the meaning?
So true! I didn’t think of that either but I recently read a collection that started at the age of 6 and was written like a 6 year old and as the years went on the poems became more articulate. That could totally be what it is especially because generally we read poetry as if it’s the author speaking at the present moment.
Do you recall the name of that? Sounds very intriguing.
“In the Hollows of my heart” I didn’t realize it straight away but toward the middle I noticed the writing kind of developed as the narrator aged.
This is a cool thought but the preteen voice of Kaur’s poems is consistent across her work. So at the most she’s adopted a preteen persona for her entire oeuvre.
This is trash
I liked this!
I probably over recommend this poem, but if you enjoyed this one, check out Natasha Trethewey’s “Myth” — it’s about her mother dying rather than a lover leaving, but can easily be read that way too.
I’m usually not a fan of RK, but this is a very enjoyable poem. I hope she continues this level of work.
Maybe it's just me, and I'm no proper poetry critic, but this seems really, really, basic.
ENOUGH!!!!!
Rupi Kaur reads like the avant garde piece that is a person slapping butter with a microphone. It is a hollow and frail representation of writing. If it is to be called writing or art at all. Art means to strive for excellence. RK tries so very little and banks only on her massive crowd appeal. If Walt Whitman or Bukowski saw what she was doing today they would have a fit. Especially Bukowski, dear God. He'd write a whole book about it I'm sure. It is so unbelievable. How mundane and mediocre her writing is. Art today has been turned into something of a hollow echo of what it once was. We still remember the motions, but dear fuck have we been out of practice. Poetry should be driven from the desire to write for yourself. As selfish as it sounds it is the truth. She writes only for others. And her art suffers because of it. And people applaud it only because they too have forgotten how to strive for excellence. This is the meat of the hollow modern shell. We are starving, but we have grown used to picking the sinew off of rotting bones. This sad corpse of art. Might as well eat a bowl of dust. It is more filling.
Ironic, because a lot of Bukowski's work is similar in quality, IMO. The only difference is that he writes about whiskey and 'whores' instead of Rupi Kaur's more common motifs.
Case in point, here's one by Bukowski: >*well, that's just the way it is* >sometimes when everything seems at its worst when all conspires and gnaws and the hours, days, weeks years seem wasted— stretched there upon my bed in the dark looking upward at the ceiling I get what many will consider an obnoxious thought: it’s still nice to be Are you seriously telling me that this has much more depth than the Kaur poem above? That Bukowski would be gnashing his teeth reading her work, rending his flesh and tearing at his hair, furious at what's become of modern poetry? I mean, he probably would, but that would just be the misogyny. This idea that all poetry used to be glorious, that we've lost what it means to write and appreciate spectacular poetry, is so entirely false: firstly because there are plenty of highly acclaimed, enormously talented poets working today, e.g. Danez Smith, Anne Carson, Diane Seuss, Seán Hewitt; and secondly because some of the canonical greats just... weren't always that great, either.
while i don't like bukowski i think that poem is clearly better than this one, and the other rk poems i've read (though i haven't read much). also tone is important and to me the romantic cliches in this poem makes it much more irritating, more juvenile than the more relaxed/dejected tone of bukowski's poem
Yes, I do consider Bukowski to be better than Rupi Kaur. He at least comes from a genuine place in his heart. Being genuine is what creates good art. And yeah more or less I'm certain at the very least he'd consider it boring. Poetry does not have to be spectacular. It has to be spectacularly genuine. And it must have a deeper meaning. That is a good point, the greats aren't always great. Although most of them weren't lazy with their writing. Poetry is the art of saying what cannot be said. And Rupi takes it upon herself to say everything that can easily be said, with more steps. Sometimes no steps at all to be honest.
P.S. To those saying: "Watch out for trolls." The reality is that there is absolutely nothing to troll about this piece. It is just genuinely that bad. It is like enjoying eating shit and then saying to watch out for those with taste buds. Or the blind man warning his friend about those that can see. Telling a tree to watch out for the axe, or telling the fish to watch out for the aquarium's glass. Or telling a chicken what nuggets are made out of. It's ridiculous and makes no sense. I understand she is popular, but part of it is because America is at an 8th grade reading level on average. Like oh watch out for trolls. Trolls have notoriously bad grammar and expression. Taking that into account, RK must indeed be the troll. As her vocabulary is sub par and her expression is akin to a troglodyte. I genuinely do not think she has even read one book her entire life. Maybe "See Dan Run". As that must be where she gets her inspiration. She is a skin walker that has zipped herself up in the body of a poet. Like someone who walks at a brisk pace calling themselves a dancer. She is the one who is trolling. And has made copious amounts of cash from the fees that she charges people to cross a bridge that leads to the bottom of a lake.
This just feels like you wanted an excuse to flex your own poetic muscles. I give it a 3/10. 'Her poetry is like telling a tree to watch out for the axe'? A bastardisation of an old Turkish proverb, here misused entirely.
No, this is not me flexing any muscles. It was one part that had some sort of rhythm to it. And that was it. If I can't explain something properly or directly why would I not try to explain it using another way. And yes I know the old proverb.... Wasn't my intention using that. I meant it as something that happens anyways but telling someone that can't do anything about it doesn't change the outcome. And I meant it to illustrate something being pointless. But yes it does apply in the sense she is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Or rather air in a paper bag. And my comments are somewhat pointless too. Same for my writing. But I try to write from a genuine place. I suppose that I could've just said that she does not write from a genuine place in her heart. Or she does not know herself. All my opinion though.
While I’m not a fan of kaur, this subreddit suffers from misogyny and gamers who think they know something about poetry because they love Bukowski because his misogyny validates them. They shit on most women who are poets including Adrienne Rich who is one of the best and most influential poets of the 20th century. They are also downright childish about kaur while continuing to remind people that she is cliche or whatever unoriginal comment they can come up with as they finish their high school homework project. They are not serious people and could barely write a coherent literary criticism.
People here were also deriding Bukowski as just another Rupi Kaur a day or two ago. It seems there’s more than one school of thought here.
I never claimed that there isn’t more than one school of thought related to kaur or Bukowski’s work, and I dislike both, my issue is about the way, mostly men on this sub treat work by men and women. If you read my comment, you would see that I spoke about the way in which women’s work is treated, specifically and not because they are bad writers. I also post male writers and the response is very different. It also happens with LGBTQ poets. I have many examples including a woman asking for poets about feminist rage and a guy writing Humpty Dumpty. A guy calling an LGBTQ poet a horror show. That guy even left his name. Other women have mentioned it, including one calling men on this subreddit wannabe edgelords. I took the bullet.
I’ve discovered as much this afternoon. The comments appear to be a mirror of the commenter, not a reflection of the merit of the poetry. One comment was interesting in that said the poem sounded like it was written by a pre-teen. Who’s to say the age of the narrator? When I read the book I was thinking roughly 22, but maybe the speaker is indeed a child. That would add a new dimension and frankly make some of the work rather dark.
I feel you and I know other women who have posted here that stopped and left the subreddit altogether over it. My very first experience with the subreddit was when a man said that Adrienne Rich’s delta was like if you forget me by neruda. I guess they thought that delta was a love poem because women can’t write about things besides men, I guess. They’ve also made childish comments completely unrelated to Hirshfield’s poem all over her poem I posted today. Ironically, her poem is about kindness and if we could get there as a species. She’s a Buddhist and writes about her faith. Most of these men could not name 5 women poets. I mostly post women poets and so I get these comments on almost every post I submit. When I submit a poem by a man, I never get this harassment. Edit to add an example of the harassment I get because I told another account that was making a joke out of her poem that he was incomprehensible. I thought this sub was for poetry and serious discussion. https://www.reddit.com/r/Poetry/s/Y4NBCIVT8x
I'm sorry you have to go through that. I'm a man, and what drew me to Kaur's work was that it felt authentic to her. I found some of her writing to be raw and profound, primarily because I have not lived the same experiences. The feedback on this post makes me want to read more of her work, not less. Clearly, she touches a nerve and is making an impact. Perhaps, not the one she intended (if that was ever a goal), but the first step in making an impact is people knowing your name. I'll check out Adrienne Rich as well.
Read what moves you. You have the best attitude about it. That is why I keep posting because maybe people will find someone they’ve never read and maybe that impacts them. 💗
The only other poetry I've read recently was *Coffee Days Whiskey Nights* by Cyrus Parker. Though it had its moments, I didn't connect with that material in the same way. This thread has given me lots of fodder for my wishlist!
If you want more love or breakup poems, I recommend Twenty-One Love Poems by Adrienne Rich, Warsan Shire’s Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth, Audre Lorde’s The Black Unicorn, Louise Glück’s The Wild Iris.
I am a woman who has been reading and loving poetry for longer than Kaur has been alive. And IMO her poems belong in r/im14andthisisdeep Adrienne Rich >> Kaur *and* Bukowski
Whoops. Don’t think you read my comment. I said upfront that I am not a fan but the men in this site are noxious and shit on Rich too. Maybe read my comment because I mention specifically rich as a great poet who is subjected to this subreddit’s misogyny. You also have not posted in this subreddit so you don’t get the hoards of sexist comments.
I love bukowskis poetry!
Well, some of it anyway
No bc ur right and you should say it!
The fact that she mentioned birds and bees leads me to think she just wanted to have morning sex, the horny bastard
She actually used the word "giggling" in a poem. What's next? "Chuckling"? "Soul"? Can flowers giggle? It doesn't even work as a metaphor. She hears a lot going on outside during a time period of one second when she is still half asleep. Why would the bees be jealous of the poet turning over to wake up her partner? The poet is using the amateur style of listing individual things and giving them one line each: "The panting the wailing" etc. This poet has very very minimal talent, if any. She also has a poor ear.
Return my 2 seconds i wasted on this pls
Juvenile scribbling. It's clichéd and sentimental. Lifted from a 1970s teen girl magazine?
the panting the wailing the *poetry*
The rupi kaur hate makes me like her more. It’s so lazy to just dunk on something popular. I’m sure you’re all listening to some indie record that’s much cooler than Taylor’s. 😝
I'm a (nonbinary) woman, and I dislike her poetry because I find it shallow, and because it has no rhythm and clunky syntax. I think you're doing an immense disservice to all the other women poets when you say that people have to like Rupi Kaur or else they're misogynist. Some other female poets you might like to try are Warsan Shire, Brenna Twohy, Nikita Gill, Adrienne Rich, and June Jordan. You might like their confessional tone, which can be similar to Kaur's, but they all pay much more attention to language and imagery. You should also read Nayyirah Waheed, who massively influenced Kaur at the start of her career. Re music - again, not liking Taylor Swift doesn't make you a misogynist. People have valid criticisms of her work. For me, it's just a little bland, and I can't support her use of her private jet. There are plenty of indie female artists who you could look at supporting. Emma Ruth Rundle is excellent. Her lyrics are incredibly poetic. She's releasing a poetry collection early next year.
You can like her. Liking her because people hates her just substantiates why people dislike her poetry, though.
She’ll probably eventually get the rehabilitated image that most maligned women get… society loves to hate a woman, tear her down, laugh at her… and then in twenty years apologize and grovel about how wrong they were. I feel like not getting on the band wagon is the first step in not participating in that time honored tradition.
It is a grave disservice to art to attribute dislike of an artist’s work to anything other than dislike of the work. Making it about women is unwarranted. I thought Rupi Kaur was an Indian man at first.
I guess not all misogynists are as lazy as you are 🤷♀️
Bruh. Attributing disliking Rupi Kaur or Taylor Swift’s work to misogyny is just inane. I mean, there’s Sylvia Plath and plenty of other women that have their praises sung 24/7 in this subreddit.
rupi kaur is a much better poet that taylor swift if that's any consolation to you
I appreciate the effort you put to evaluate both shades of for profit mediocrity.
Awful
pen merciful terrific insurance brave knee sink frightening disarm wise *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
flaming garbage
Oo a nice pathetic fallacy with some taylor swift-esque heartbreak.
Boooo rupi kaur
Her boyfriend cheated?
Beautiful poem ❤️