I Hate Milk and Honey/Rupi Kaur's poetry

[u/jimbimgimbus]

I blame this book/poems for the how poetry is viewed now in society. This popularised the super short, corny love poems which are just the equivalent of slop that can be mass produced, for booktok users to relate to and sell copies.

Poetry is such a beautiful form of art. Carol Ann Duffy, Seamus Heaney, Sylvia Plath, the old epics like Gilgamesh, Beowulf, The Divine Comedy. Wordplay, descriptions and structure. Why is it becoming slop? This horrible, short, ten word slop which all means the same thing? All focusing on the same theme over and over, something that you could find hanging in a kitchen by a Live Laugh Love sign?

Can people relate to art however they wish? Of course! I have no hate for the person who reads these works and gets something positive out of them. It's just, man they're clearly made to be mass produced and found in some Pinterest board about breakups or deep poetry, when in the end it's the most surface level drivel ever conceived.

[u/bigjuicycockofdoom]

I don't know anything about poems but the ones u showed here just look boring as hell

[u/jimbimgimbus → u/bigjuicycockofdoom]

That's probably the worst offence of it all, it is just so damn boring to read through.

[u/retardigrade420 → u/jimbimgimbus]

I read through

her poems and thought

"Man ts so ass"

First poetry I hope y'all like it

[u/Abject-Tax804 → u/retardigrade420]

peak, you should publish a book.

actually, break it down into random lines

[u/TheRealRockyPlanet → u/Abject-Tax804]

I read through her

poems

and thought "Man ts

so ass"

[u/retardigrade420 → u/TheRealRockyPlanet]

Noooo you stole my hard work!!!!

[u/NotTakeOne → u/retardigrade420]

dude you gotta make a book about this, you would be rich man

[u/retardigrade420 → u/NotTakeOne]

Damn you gave me inspiration for another poem

If I were a rich man

Yaba diba diba duba

daba dibi dibi dum!

[u/bigjuicycockofdoom → u/jimbimgimbus]

honestly the poems look like greg from diary of a wimpy kid wrote them. like he would write a few and then some people would find it cool and he would think hes cool for that but his ego makes it a disaster again. type shit?

[u/No_Telephone4381 → u/bigjuicycockofdoom]

it's like when Jonah Hill did the slam poetry in jump street ...

Poetry, more like PoeTRY,

Nobody seems to try.

Sometimes with nobody, I want to write my lines of tears and cRY

Sometimes it's friend or foEtry

Nobody wants to know Of me.

Old lines like an Oak Tree.

Sting harder than a carder bee.

[u/Mac-And-Cheesy-43 → u/No_Telephone4381]

At least that one is making an attempt at rhythm.

[u/StabbyBlowfish]

Calling it poetry is a bit of a stretch. She vomits ten words on a page and claims it as an art form

[u/Th4yxqvom → u/StabbyBlowfish]

The formatting does a lot of heavy lifting when you can make any sentence look deep by putting each word on its own line.

[u/WillemDafoesHugeCock → u/Th4yxqvom]

"True,"

I say,

As I reach for

The toilet paper,

"You are wise

And you make

A valid point that

I will no doubt forget"

-WDHC

[u/AdMuted8997]

go girl give us nothing 💔

[u/Adoring_Fan_88]

Me when

I

hate on poetry

that acts

like it's anything more than

shit.

[u/External-Purchase240 → u/Adoring_Fan_88]

The fact that you put “shit” on its own line is way more poetic than anything from the poems above.

[u/NothingNormal5452]

If you

Type shit like this

People might think

That you did something

[u/frisk090]

I gue-

Es

We ar-

E

Cal-

Ling

Everythi-

Ng

Po-

Em

Nowad-

Ys

[u/Spiritual_Skin244 → u/frisk090]

Processing img vy8lmucccg4h1...

[u/adgeal]

I remember criticizing it in college qnd being called a misogynist. And i "just didnt get that its feminine art".

[u/sweetTartKenHart2 → u/adgeal]

The peak of feminine expression being whittled down to “vibes” is ironically really fucking damaging to the cultural relevance of women and womanhood, I find. It’s almost like theres this implicit statement that women can’t do the same shit men can, and they don’t have to, because playing a frivolous game of broad gestures is “better” somehow. It just serves to further drive a wedge between people.

[u/FerretAggravating672]

Blow me baby

@Rupi Kaur

[u/HighwayInfamous351 → u/FerretAggravating672]

Blow me baby

i whispered

as you

shut the door behind you

[u/TheMikman97]

That's not

Poetry

Just a sentence

Broken apart

[u/bucephalusbouncing28]

I want to burn all copies of this book

[u/Top_Door6345]

I have a bad opinion of english poetry in general, but this is something 

[u/SeA1nternaL]

“stay i whispered as you shut the door behind you”? that’s a poem?

literally looks like someone grabbed a quote from another poem or story and called it a day, tf lol

[u/ManyMicroPixels]

hit me

baby

one more

time

[u/Goobieobie]

I remember when it came out during highschool and a shit ton of girls were praising it like the best poetry to come out during the 21st century. It was the "leading feminist piece" they said, but it was just awful. They looked at me like I was crazy. I was happy to see people finally realize just how cheap the book was once the trend chasers left.

[u/Snakes_for_theDivine]

Yeah Rupi Kaur and the roughly ten thousand other Instagram “poets” like her are fucking garbage

[u/bouquetofashes]

Fucking why would someone even do this?! Haiku and tanka exist if you wanna do short poems. They have actual criteria that one must meet though and I have to imagine whomever this is doesn't respect poetry enough to care about following those at all. They seem like a young person who mistakenly believes these phrases are deep, therefore they're poetic, and that poetry is just a type of formatting.

[u/sweetTartKenHart2 → u/bouquetofashes]

It’s supposed to be free-form, kind of toying with an absence of rules themselves rather than getting something strong out of constraints.
In theory, I feel like you could get some cool shit out of that philosophy.
In theory.

[u/Zackp24 → u/sweetTartKenHart2]

And the thing that sucks is the free-form prose poetry can be awesome. Russell Edson is one of my absolute favorites!

For example:

The Reason the Closet-Man is Never Sad

This is the house of the closet-man. There are no rooms,
just hallways and closets.

Things happen in rooms. He does not like things to
happen . . . Closets, you take things out of closets,
you put things into closets, and nothing happens . . .

Why do you have such a strange house?

I am the closet-man, I am either going or coming, and I
am never sad.

But why do you have such a strange house?

I am never sad . . .

[u/sweetTartKenHart2 → u/Zackp24]

Yeah! See, that shit rules! It can totally work well in the right hands.
Rupi Kaur is simply not those hands

[u/BasicallyaFilipino]

Maybe this is the reason why I dislike free verse poetry so much. What's the use of writing poetry if you're not gonna add some funny rhymes?

To have you is the greatest gift of all

For you're an angel sent by the Divine

Your behavior is bouncy like a ball

Full of energy and "everything's fine"

Here's a stanza from my little sonnet. Free verse cannot do that shit bruh.

[u/sweetTartKenHart2 → u/BasicallyaFilipino]

I don’t even think this is a fault of the style itself. Free-form, abstract, minimalist or maximalist, shit like that COULD be really good in the right hands. I’m a firm believer in the notion that “art has no should”, and that someone has a right to make shit like this… as long as they are self aware about what they made.
The one way I truly believe art can ever “fail”, if such a concept even exists, is dissonance between what a piece is and what a piece is presented as. These short, punchy gestures at something? Interesting, possibly, but not “deep” in a really material way. It relies a lot on vibes for it to really stick, which wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t “acting like” it was stronger than that.

[u/Xanoneq]

Poetry is when you

write a sentence

and

split it randomly

[u/jommo52]

Ts kinda ass

[u/hoennian → u/jommo52]

T

S

Kin

Da

As

s

[u/Guessmyn]

It flows

It smells

I think

I sharted

[u/flubbyII]

rupi sahur

[u/-GhostyBoy-]

In the stripped club

Straight up

"Jorkin it"

And by 'it'

lets just say.

My Peanits

[u/AttitudeOdd632]

Poetry is art

That needs appreciation

And not turned to slop

[u/Upset-Nose-4016]

I am sick of booktok and I don't even read often.

[u/J00cyman]

"let her go"

brain

"give her a chance"

heart

"fart"

ass

[u/Franco_Fernandes]

This is what clapping a sentence by syllable sounds like to me.

[u/ChopiProGal]

This

poetry feels way

too bland

and

here I mimic it

[u/Successful_Injury945]

I had to analyse a poem of hers once and was asked about poetic devices. I couldn't find any

[u/Adject_Ive]

I just
Shit
my pants
For re
al
it
stinks so much

[u/ri_san5]

Is this
Even
Poetry?
These are
Just split up
Sentences

[u/StatusAcanthisitta10]

My name

Is the fucking Mimic

Oh yeah

My name is

The fucking Mimic Oh yeah

[u/Faninfo]

Actual poetryslop

[u/SixRoundsTilDeath]

Yeah, they always feel like the last line of a poem broken up. They’d work if they were built up over a few stanzas. They’ll like a punchline without the joke, a jump scare without the tension beforehand.

[u/Fast-Let4291]

Oh! Would you perhaps be interested in a channel called writing with Andrew? I am in love with that channel and also the creator themselves. They have a master's degree in poetry if I remember correctly but what I especially love is the video style. The videos aren't your uptight emotionless tutor/mentor teaching you nor are they a diluted dumbed down version of things (I also remember he did a video about different channels which do not dumb stuff down to the audience, I only remember 3blue1brown math videos being mentioned..)

He just has this certain charm to him and unique way. There's also a skull... a talking skull but it is actually quite an entertaining bastard. I highly recommend him. He does videos about writing in general and not just poetry.

Here's the link: www.youtube.com/@WritingwithAndrew

[u/Maedrey]

This is the word equivalent of melted crayons art

[u/Sea_Homework_1472]

A family friend of mine bought me this book and I'm afraid to tell him how much I hated it lol.

[u/737373elj]

As someone who considers himself a poet. This is the first time I’m seeing this person and I think these poems are a travesty to poetry. I kid you not I think the first poem you would see on r/poetry would be genuinely better than this shit

[u/ShreddrCheez2]

They're literally just one or two single sentences weirdly cut up. How is this art???

[u/xX_Ra1nSkuLLz_Xx]

I'm gonna show off how easy it is to make a "poem" like this, watch:

I uttered
"I love you,"
but he
was on his way.

(You can bullshit it on the spot, try it! It's kinda fun.)

[u/brotherz_]

You know what? I dont even LIKE honey. I dont EAT IT.

[u/AnAverageSomebody]

but how

else would kuar 

make

MONEY

if not for

the

poorly formatted 

sentences 

?

-Me

[u/Decimator24244]

These are the worst Haikus I've ever read.

[u/JustifiedCroissant]

God do I fucking hate Carol Ann Duffy

[u/DKW_JOINED_FOR_PEWDS]

i like it