When I first read Rupi Kaur’s collection of poems titled "Milk and Honey", it was after months of seeing scans of the pages on my Tumblr feed. (You know that this parable takes place a while ago because I no longer even use the blogging platform.) T

he poems had seemed, well, if not good, then surely interesting. Kaur’s accompanying chicken-scratch illustrations had a Kurt-Vonnegut-Breakfast-Of-Champions flair to them that made the collection seem inviting enough, and I was in a bookstore anyway.

Why not read them all at once for free and see what was inside?

I’ll be honest with you: four or five poems were really great. Four or five more were pretty good. The rest just didn’t do it for me. And that’s okay. Kaur is not much older than me, and this is her first collection. She has time and room to improve.

Much of Tumblr (ah, that infamous website) didn’t share my opinion, though. Kaur quickly joined the ranks of John Green and Rainbow Rowell as “Authors That Aren’t Really That Deep But Fifteen-Year-Olds Think Are The Most Profound Writers On The Planet.”

Predictably, there was some online backlash to this. People who, like me, didn’t see the appeal weren’t afraid to say so. But this quickly spurred a new kind of contrarian:

The Person Who Gets Mad At People Who Criticize Any Kind Of Writing.

“It’s art!” they cry from their righteous golden pedestals. “You shouldn’t be bullying this writer online with your comments!” And this is a microcosm of what is perhaps my least favorite thing about the modern literary scene as a whole: the incapability to accept that others will not like every work and that it’s okay if they say so.

Really, it’s okay. Or at least it should be.

The People Who Get Mad At Others Who Criticize Any Kind Of Writing when it comes to Rupi Kaur, usually come from two distinct, but equally idiotic camps: those who believe that it’s wrong to criticize Kaur’s writing since it is her art that she put a lot of effort into, and those who believe that since she wrote about her sexual assault, that she is immune to criticism of that writing.

I mean, look at this shit. Just look at it:

That's not a lot of empty space I left in the article. That's a lot of empty space in the poem.

When a writer writes for themselves, someone critiquing may have to tread carefully. But when that writing is either monetized or intentionally published for a wide audience, a critic is in an entirely different territory. The “coping mechanism” of writing no longer is personal to the writer. They have to admit that they want their writing to be consumed by others, and accept that they are representing themselves to the world. It’s a scary thing. I would know. I’m doing it right now.

Yes, sensitivity is always important to keep in mind. But it is possible to both be sensitive to the subject matter and critical of style, simultaneously. I know nuance may be difficult to grasp for some people, but yes, it’s doable. And with poetry, as with other kinds of art, there is etiquette to how one is meant to critique something. While there is some debate over exactly how one should be kind, a good rule of thumb for me is just don’t @ the writer on social media with your criticism. And don’t invalidate the author’s personal experiences within your critique. Otherwise, go wild.

There are many good, balanced criticisms of "Milk and Honey" that critique not Kaur’s narrative of her experiences, but the way that she has chosen to convey them is what makes art art.

These critiques are just as valid as Kaur’s poems themselves. Whether they’re “lol this sucks” or a 900-page dissertation, the critic’s opinions matter. Why is Kaur held to a higher place of moral superiority than her readers? That’s an unfair position for her as a writer, too.

Because her defense is not anyone offering rebuttals, saying no, these passages are good for these reasons. They’re just saying that you shouldn’t insult them in general. And that makes even praise stale.

If you have any major critique of this work, feel free to let me know in the comments, and I will only make some people yell at you for having an opinion. (If I could fit a winky emoji, I would place it here.) And yes, I did return to Odyssey just to deconstruct the defense of Rupi Kaur.