Rupi Kaur

Rupi Kaur in 2017

Rupi Kaur (October 4, 1992) is an Indian-born Canadian poet and performer.

Quotes

• …For a long time, it debilitated me a lot. Nothing that I wrote was good enough. I’d start writing then be like, “Nope. This is sh–.” And that was a really negative experience to have with my writing, because the more I said that, it was almost like the writing in my heart would cower into a corner and be like, “I’m not coming out.” I really had to work through a few weeks of being kind to myself and saying, “Your job is to get to the desk, have your pen out, and write, write, write, write.” You have to get through the bad stuff before you can get to the pit of everything that you really enjoy…
  • On the pressure that she felt writing a second book in “Instagram sensation Rupi Kaur doesn't have social media on her phone” in EW (2017 Oct 13)

• How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you* Page text.

• People aren’t used to poetry that’s so easy and simple.
  • On her work in “The young ‘Instapoet’ Rupi Kaur: from social media star to bestselling writer” in The Guardian (2017 May 27)

• I used to submit to anthologies and magazines when I was a student – but I knew I was never going to be picked up. All their writing was, you know, about the Canadian landscape or something. And my poem is about this woman with her legs spread open.
  • On how she felt that her poetic topics were unconventional when compared to other poetry submissions in “The young ‘Instapoet’ Rupi Kaur: from social media star to bestselling writer” in The Guardian (2017 May 27)

• When you see someone who looks like your mom there and she’s like ‘this puts so much of my pain into something concrete that I can hold,’…That’s when I’m like okay, I’m doing something right and I just want to keep doing it.
  • On how she is glad that her work is reaching women just like her in “Rupi Kaur: 'There was no market for poetry about trauma, abuse and healing’” in The Guardian (2016 Aug 26)