The Sun and Her Flowers

by Rupi Kaur

Overview

From Rupi Kaur, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of milk and honey, comes her long-awaited second collection of poetry.  A vibrant and transcendent journey about growth and healing. Ancestry and honoring one’s roots. Expatriation and rising up to find a home within yourself.

Divided into five chapters and illustrated by Kaur, the sun and her flowers is a journey of wilting, falling, rooting, rising, and blooming. A celebration of love in all its forms.
 
this is the recipe of life
said my mother
as she held me in her arms as i wept 
think of those flowers you plant
in the garden each year 
they will teach you
that people too
must wilt
fall
root
rise
in order to bloom
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781449486792
Publisher:	Andrews McMeel Publishing
Publication date:	10/03/2017
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	232
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Rupi Kaur is a poet, artist, and performer. Her works have taken the literary world by storm. Her second book, the sun and her flowers—an instant global bestseller, is an artistic sibling to her debut, milk and honey—one of America's bestselling books of 2017.

“i am the product of all the ancestors getting together and deciding these stories need to be told.”

Rupi sees her work as an articulation of this vision. She’s an eternal artist. At the age of five, her mother handed her a paintbrush and said, “draw your heart out.” At seventeen, she happened upon a local open mic night where she performed her first spoken word poem. She fell in love with performance poetry that night. Rupi continued performing across Canada, while building a community of readers and poetry enthusiasts. While studying at the University of Waterloo, Rupi wrote, illustrated, and self-published her first collection, milk and honey. In the years since, milk and honey has become an international phenomenon. It’s sold over 3 million copies, been translated into more than 35 languages, and landed as a #1 New York Times bestseller—where it has spent more than 100 consecutive weeks. 

“i am the first woman in my lineage with freedom of choice. to craft her future whichever way i choose. say what is on my mind when i want to. without the whip of the lash. there are hundreds of firsts i am thankful for.”

Rupi explores a variety of themes in her work ranging from love, loss, trauma, healing, femininity, migration, and revolution. She’s a storyteller and chronicler—a repository of community and history. There’s a simplicity and nuance to her work that has found a home in the hearts of millions. This magic is captured in her stage performances, which are magnetic musical interactions of poetry, art, and theater. Rupi's long-awaited second collection, the sun and her flowers, was published in 2017 and debuted as a #1 global bestseller. Within the first three months it sold a million copies and was embraced by readers worldwide. She’s a Forbes 30 under 30, an editor of the 2016 Mays Literary Anthology of New Writing from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and one of BBC’s 100 Women. Rupi hopes to continue her artistic exploration through art and poetry—searching for ways to understand and articulate.

i stand
on the sacrifices
of a million women before me thinking
what can i do
to make this mountain taller so the women after me
can see farther 
- legacy 
 
 

Editorial Reviews

"Rupi Kaur is Kicking Down the Doors of Publishing” (The New York Times)

"At age 24, Rupi Kaur has been called the voice of her generation." (USA Today)

“Rupi Kaur sits atop a new wave in poetry.” (The Wall Street Journal)

“Perhaps the best-known poet in the English-speaking world at this point” (Bustle)

"Rupi Kaur reinvents poetry ... (she) is undeniably equipped with the poet’s ability to articulate emotions that readers struggle to make sense of.” (The Economist)

“Outselling Homer Ten to One” (New York Magazine)

"The Poet Who Touched a Nerve" (The Times (London))

“there’s no denying that Rupi Kaur is currently one of the most — if not the most — popular poets in America …” (Boston Globe)

"Rupi Kaur is a rock star."  (The Kansas City Star)

From the Publisher

★ 05/01/2018
Kaur, author of the immensely popular Milk and Honey, writes and sketches in the same plain, honest, and shattering style about healing. Her fresh, poignant metaphor of a broken relationship as an abandoned construction site sets the stage for the structured volume, divided into sections ("wilting," "falling," "rooting," "rising," and "blooming"): "it isn't what we left behind/that breaks me/but what we could have built/had we stayed." Kaur then asks, "do you think flowers will grow here/when you and i are off/building something new/with someone else." The author frames several longer prose poems graphically as books within a book in which she digs into the root causes of her mistakes and her inspiration, such as her cultural upbringing to never speak up and the sacrifices of her mother, an East Indian immigrant, respectively. Kaur exudes a wisdom and reverence for life that she melds with the social justice ideals of feminism and equity. She speaks to teens' struggles to accept, to forgive, and to love with intensity and respect: "when i stopped searching for home within others and lifted the foundation of home within myself…there were no roots more intimate." VERDICT A must-buy for poetry collections.—Sara Lissa Paulson, City-As-School High School, New York City

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