THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Given the apt tag of an “InstaPoet”, online sensation Rupi Kaur gained worldwide recognition with her first self-published anthology of prose and poetry, Milk and Honey, which also went on to feature in The New York Times Bestseller list. With 1.6 million followers on Instagram (and counting), the 24-year-old is back with her second book, The Sun and Her Flowers. In an email interaction, the Indo-Canadian artist and author spoke about her journey as a poet, and her deliberate exclusion of upper case letters, not as a nod to American poet and writer, EE Cummings —
Is poetry an extension of your art? How has your journey been so far, as a poet?
I started taking writing seriously towards the end of high school.
I began to perform at open mics in community spaces. But I’d been writing poetry since elementary school. I’d write for birthdays of friends or school crushes. In university, I studied rhetoric, which meant intensive writing. Poetry is an extension of me. My body. My experiences. It’s my art. A reflection of how I interact and make sense of the world around me.
What sets this apart from your last book? And why the gap between the two?
I look at The Sun and Her Flowers and Milk and Honey as siblings — cut from the same cloth, but unique in their own ways. Their birthing processes were different.
I released Milk and Honey when
I was in university. The Sun and
Her Flowers was months of rewriting and editing. And I have since expanded as a person, and so has my worldview. Milk and Honey was published three years ago, and a
lot has changed since then. I think readers will be able to sense this growth in the book.
How long does it take from conception of an idea for a poem to its completion?
Journaling and free-writing is the first process. I have a standard journal. I arrive to it each morning. And I always free-write. I might not revisit the pieces for months.
Some poems are immediate. They are inspired by experience and realisation. Others can take months to complete.
What is the reason behind the absence of upper-case letters in your work?
Although I can read and understand my mother tongue, Punjabi,
I do not have the skill to write poetry in it. To write Punjabi means to use the Gurmukhi script. And in this script, there are no uppercase or lowercase letters — all letters are treated the same. I enjoy how simple that is. How symmetrical and absolutely straightforward.
I also feel that there is a level of equality this visuality brings to
the work. A visual representation of what I want to see more within the world: equalness.
How do you feel about the tag of a ‘millennial’ poet? How do you feel writing is changing in the age of social media?
I look at the internet as a medium. At first, I published Milk and Honey on my own. There was no traditional market for what I was creating. No publishing house was going to release it.
So the vast majority of interactions with Milk and Honey was through word-of-mouth. Social media allows us to bypass traditional gatekeepers who would choose what work is worthy of publishing. Nevertheless, people have been writing in this stylistic way for generations.
I think social media allows people to grasp a concept of my work. Enabling them to then pick up the book. Or attend my shows. The gravity of how universal this can be
is awing.
What is your take on how the feminist movement is changing today?
I look, acknowledge and am grateful at the progression being made. I’m thankful for the generations of trailblazers who’ve led us to this moment in time.