From March 16th to the 26th, Canadian artist Rupi Kaur came to the UK as part of her tour of ‘the sun and her flowers’. As two-time New York Times bestselling author, Kaur is no stranger to a large audience and read beautifully from her book to sold out venues through from London to Glasgow.

Kaur is impartial in discussing universal themes of love, loss, trauma, healing and femininity. Her fluid and organic style has touched many and deciphers the human experience in poetry. Kaur’s delicate formula of abstract sketches and lower-case lettered odes to self-love rose to prominence through self-publication on her Instagram account that has over 2.5 million followers.

“it took 3 years to write because I wanted to grow as a writer so desperately” Kaur has said in a past interview.

“The sun and her flowers” is divided into five chapters. Wilting, Falling, Rooting, Rising and Blooming to loosely emulate the five stages of grief whilst drawing political implications of immigration and diaspora. As in the style of her writing, Kaur selectively carries out readings from each part of the book chronologically. She met the likeness of cheers and finger snaps from the audience. In between readings, Kaur would invite her listeners to intimate details explaining why a poem was written or who it was written for/about.

When flicking through either of her novels, I can say that she purges the most intimate and heart-wrenching thoughts and feelings one and can have with themselves onto paper, relieving a solitude universally suffered as a result of trauma, loss, abuse and heartbreak. Her public readings only heightens this carthasis further and conceives a community in life’s inevitable ordeals.