Rupi Kaur

Rupi Kaur
Rupi Kaur reading from her book milk and honey in Vancouver in 2017
Rupi Kaur in 2017
Born (1992-10-04) 4 October 1992
Punjab, India
Occupation Author, poet
Language English
Citizenship Canadian
Notable works Milk and Honey, The Sun and Her Flowers
Website
www.rupikaur.com

Rupi Kaur (born October 4, 1992) (Punjabi: ਰੂਪੀ ਕੌਰ) is an Indian born Canadian poet, writer, illustrator, and performer. She immigrated to Canada as a child and has since then, settled in Toronto. Her debut book, a collection of poetry and prose titled Milk and Honey, was published in 2014; it sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide and spent more than a year on the The New York Times Best Seller list. Her second book, The Sun and Her Flowers, was published in 2017.

Early life

Kaur was born into a Sikh family in Punjab, India.[1] She immigrated to Canada with her parents when she was four years old. Unable to speak English with other children at her school, Kaur was inspired by her mother to draw and paint.[2] She would write poems to her friends on their birthdays and messages to her middle school crushes.[3] She attended Turner Fenton Secondary School.[4]

Kaur studied rhetoric and professional writing at the University of Waterloo.[3] Later, she and her family moved to Brampton.[5] She currently resides in Toronto, Ontario.[5]

Career

Kaur's first performance took place in 2009 in the basement of the Punjabi Community Health Centre in Malton.[2] Among her more notable works is her photo-essay on menstruation, described as a piece of visual poetry intended to challenge prevalent societal menstrual taboos.[6]

Throughout high school, Kaur shared her writing anonymously. In 2013, she began sharing her work under her own name on Tumblr. She took her writing to Instagram in 2014 and began adding simple illustrations.[7]

Kaur's first book, an anthology titled Milk and Honey (stylized as milk and honey), was published on November 4, 2014.[8] Her inspiration for the book's name came from a past poem which included a line about women surviving terrible times. She describes the change in the women as, "smooth as milk and as thick as honey."[9] A collection of poetry, prose, and hand-drawn illustrations, the book is divided into four chapters, and each chapter depicts a different theme.[3][10]

Book sales of milk and honey surpassed the 2.5 million copy mark.[11] The book was on The New York Times Best Seller list for over 77 weeks.[12] Milk and Honey has since been translated into 25 languages.[7]

Her second book, The Sun and Her Flowers, was published on October 3, 2017.[13][14] Works in this collection explore a variety of themes including loss, trauma, healing, femininity, migration and revolution.[15]

Artistry

As in Gurmukhi script, her work is written exclusively in lowercase, using only the period as a form of punctuation. Kaur writes this way to honor her culture. She has said that she enjoys the equality of letters and that the style reflects her worldview.[2] Her written work is meant to be an experience that is easy for the reader to follow, with simple drawings to elevate her words.[16]

Common themes found throughout her works include abuse, femininity, love, self-care, and heartbreak.[17]

Influences

Kaur draws inspiration from various scholars including Kahlil Gibran, Alice Walker, and Sharon Olds.[18] She has also been influenced by Sikh scriptures.[3][19] The experience of learning English upon moving to Canada has influenced her writing style.[8]

Controversies

Social media

In March 2015, Kaur posted a series of photographs to Instagram depicting scenes of a woman's menstruation cycle. Consisting of six photos, the work titled "The Period." formed her final project for her undergraduate studies and depicted herself with menstrual blood stains on her clothing and bed sheets. Kaur wrote: “I see the way many communities avoid the menstruating women. In some societies a woman is not allowed out of her home on her period even to go to school, or she isn’t allowed to visit her religious place of worship because she’s considered dirty. […] By highlighting these distinct moments of the cycle that women go through I will be forcing viewers to look and tackle their fears head on.”[20]

Kaur later revealed that the photos were removed by Instagram for not complying with the site's terms of service.[21] She remarked: "thank you Instagram for providing me with the exact response my work was created to critique"[20].[22][23][24] Instagram responded offering Kaur an apology and claimed that the images were removed by mistake.[21]

Plagiarism allegations

In April 2015, poet and author Nayyirah Waheed stated that Kaur's poetry has an "extreme hyper similarity" to her own poetry, such as the poetry featured in her book Salt. Kaur did not respond to the allegation.[25][26][27]

Literary criticism

In August 2017, Chiara Giovanni, a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at Stanford University, concluded in her analysis of Kaur's poetry: "it is disingenuous to collect a variety of traumatic narratives and present them to the West as a kind of feminist ethnography under a mantle of confession, while only vaguely acknowledging those whose stories inspired the poetry ... It can easily lead to the exploitation and commodification of those who experience said trauma." Kaur did not respond to the criticism.[27]

Awards

Rupi was listed in the BBC 100 Women in 2017.[28]

References

  1. ↑ Fischer, Molly (October 3, 2017). "Meet Rupi Kaur, author of ubiquitous Milk and Honey". www.thecut.com. Retrieved June 5, 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 "bio | rupi kaur". Rupi Kaur. 2016-11-17. Archived from the original on 2017-04-15. Retrieved 2017-04-15.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Milk & Honey: A Poet Exposes Her Heart". Kaur Life. 2014-11-20. Retrieved 2016-10-08.
  4. ↑ Nikita Brown (2018-04-29). "Poet Rupi Kaur Inducted Into Brampton's Arts Walk of Fame". Bramptonist. Archived from the original on 2018-04-30. Retrieved 2018-09-19.
  5. 1 2 "How Rupi Kaur Became the Voice of Her Generation". Flare. 2016-11-11. Retrieved 2016-12-08.
  6. ↑ Briscoll, Drogan. "Feminist Artist Rupi Kaur, Whose Period Photograph Was Removed From Instagram: 'Men Need To See My Work Most'". Huffington Post. Huffington Post. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  7. 1 2 "Rupi Kaur Is Kicking Down the Doors of Publishing". The New York Times. 2017-10-05. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-05-24.
  8. 1 2 Wilson, Carl (15 Dec 2017). "Why Rupi Kaur and Her Peers Are the Most Popular Poets in the World". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 Mar 2018.
  9. ↑ "faq | rupi kaur". rupikaur.com. Retrieved 2018-05-24.
  10. ↑ "Feminismo, violación y pérdida: así es la poesía de Rupi Kaur". La Vanguardia. Retrieved 2017-07-11.
  11. ↑ Roy, Nilanjana (23 Feb 2018). "Voices of the new 'Instagram poets': Love them or hate them, thy hold the stage". Financial Times. Retrieved 7 Mar 2018.
  12. ↑ Mzezewa, Tariro (5 Oct 2017). "Rupi Kaur Is Kicking Down the Doors of Publishing". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 Mar 2018.
  13. ↑ The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur, Andrews McMeel Publishing
  14. ↑ Kaur, Rupi (October 2017). the sun and her flowers (First ed.). London, New York, Sydney, Toronto, New Delhi: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4711-6582-5.
  15. ↑ "about | rupi kaur". rupikaur.com. Retrieved 2017-10-13.
  16. ↑ "thetimesofindia". Rupi Kaur. 31 July 2016. Archived from the original on 15 April 2017. Retrieved 15 April 2017.
  17. ↑ "milk and honey Themes - eNotes.com". eNotes. Retrieved 2017-06-07.
  18. ↑ Charleston, Erin Spencer Digital Marketer in; SC (2015-01-22). "Rupi Kaur: The Poet Every Woman Needs To Read". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 2016-12-08.
  19. ↑ Jain, Atishsa (2016-10-22). "A poet and rebel: How Insta-sensation Rupi Kaur forced her way to global fame". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 2016-12-08.
  20. 1 2 "Student's final project goes viral and makes change happen - period". May 7, 2015.
  21. 1 2 Sanghani, Radhika (2015-03-30). "Instagram deletes woman's period photos - but her response is amazing". The Telegraph. Retrieved 2016-10-08.
  22. ↑ "Instagram post by rupi kaur • Mar 25, 2015 at 4:02am UTC". Instagram. Retrieved 2017-03-01.
  23. ↑ "The picture Instagram didn't want you to see". The Independent. 2015-03-30. Retrieved 2016-10-08.
  24. ↑ Lese, Kathryn. "Padded Assumptions: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Patriarchal Menstruation Discourse". commons.lib.jmu.edu. James Madison University.
  25. ↑ http://aliahatch.tumblr.com/post/115222210212/nayyirahwaheed-loves-it-is-with-a-truly-heavy
  26. ↑ "Did Rupi Kaur plagiarize parts of 'Milk & Honey' from this Tumblr poet?". babe. 2017-07-24. Retrieved 2018-01-15.
  27. 1 2 Giovanni, Chiara. "The Problem With Rupi Kaur's Poetry". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 2018-01-15.
  28. ↑ "BBC 100 Women 2017: Who is on the list?".
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