Milk and Honey

From 2014 to 2024, six million copies of Rupi Kaur’s debut collection, milk and honey, were sold, making it one of the best-selling poetry books of the 21st century. It’s rise to fame is unusual. A Canadian writer of Indian heritage who amassed a large following through social media, Kaur specializes in short, vernacular poems, often made up of only a few lines, which are accompanied by original line drawings. Kaur was at first unable to find a conventional publisher for her collection and decided to publish milk and honey on Amazon’s self-publishing service CreateSpace in 2014. A year later, a controversy over a posted photograph taken for a university class drove people to Kaur’s social media sites and subsequently her book. Kaur’s book then sold 18,000 copies, catching the attention of Andrews McMeel Publishing, whose distributor is Simon & Schuster, a major publishing house. Kaur’s book was reissued in mainstream venues in 2015. milk and honey spent 77 weeks on the bestseller list and was translated into 35 languages. Most poetry collections sell an average of 50 to 250 copies per year, making Kaur’s success a notable exception.

milk and honey has proved controversial for two reasons. First, its content, which details childhood sexual abuse, trauma, violence, as well as adult sexual topics, has made it a target of book bans: According to the American Library Association, it is currently one of the most banned books in the United States. Second, many critics dismiss the book’s artistic merit. Kaur’s style is dismissively called Instapoetry—a neologism alluding to digital spaces like Instagram. Others defend her work, suggesting its accessibility encourages the reading and publication of poetry in general. Despite these controversies, Kaur’s book has made her an international superstar. She commands large crowds at readings and speaking events. In 2024, a 10-year anniversary edition of milk and honey was released, with additional poems, illustrations, as well as commentary by Kaur.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of mental illness, racism, emotional abuse, sexual violence, child sexual abuse, rape, and sexual content.

Poet Biography

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual violence and child sexual abuse.

Rupi Kaur was born on October 4, 1992, to a Sikh family in Punjab, India. Fearing political persecution, her father immigrated to Canada shortly before his daughter’s birth. Kaur and her mother joined him in Canada in 1995, eventually settling in Ontario’s large South Asian immigrant community. At a young age, Kaur witnessed incidents of sexual violence and was the victim of sexual abuse. Her family also dealt with racism. These hardships would become subject matter for her work. 

Kaur attended the University of Waterloo. Kaur had little success publishing in traditional venues, so she shared her poetry on Tumblr and Instagram, which also accommodated her line illustrations. She published milk and honey on Amazon’s self-publishing service CreateSpace in 2014.

In March 2015, Kaur posted to Instagram photos of her clothing and bed covered in menstrual blood to challenge discussions about menstruation. The photos were removed twice. The censorship went viral and gained Kaur more followers. Instagram eventually reinstated the photos with an apology, but the controversy helped milk and honey sell thousands of copies and be republished by a traditional publisher. 

At 22, Kaur founded a company to handle her engagements, merchandise, and social media. In 2017, her sophomore effort, the sun and her flowers, was published. In 2020, Kaur released home body, which reflects political and economic issues and centers on mental health. Kaur’s fourth book, Healing Through Words (2022), offers writing prompts and exercises, continuing the online workshops she conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. The 10th anniversary edition of milk and honey (2024) features additional poems, photos, memorabilia, a new introduction, and annotations.

Poem Text

Kaur, Rupi. milk and honey. 2016. Andrews McMeel Publishing.