Last week, on Saturday night I sat inside Trinity St. Paul’s Church and listened to words as sweet as honey drip from Rupi Kaur’s lips.
Saturday night’s reading was one stop on her 2017 North American tour to promote her latest book, the sun and her flowers, and for 120 minutes the audience witnessed what can only be described as an all consuming performance of words.
Occasionally during Kaur’s reading she described to her listeners the difficulty of finding the right words to convey her thoughts and emotions, for they were sometimes too complex to simply lay on a page in black and white. That is how I feel trying to describe her performance.
When she takes to the stage, she is everything. Her voice fills the room with such energy that it reaches so far as to gently caress the walls. Her presence on the stage is a light that you want to reach out and touch, but know better because its intensity might scorch you. She is the sun that warms your soul, she is the bitter cold that sends chills through your veins, she is everything.
While milk and honey was an ode to the experience of violence, abuse, love and loss, the sun and her flowers delve into subjects of identity, womanhood, heartache and growth.
Throughout the book you will find yourself on one page, melting at the pictures painted by her words, and on the next feeling like a nail has been driven through your heart. This book is a journey through the myriad of human emotions that often are difficult to confront and accept, but are oh so rewarding when they are.
The sun and her flowers is now available for purchase in stores and online through all major Canadian bookstores. It is a must read as a follow up to milk and honey, as well as for anyone who has struggled with love, loss, or self acceptance. Calling it a collection of poems seems a bit of a disservice when it really is an amalgamation of words of wisdom, strength and love.
