Rupi Kaur has been a personal inspiration to me in many ways. She has influenced my reading habits, my love for writing poetry and the importance of embracing my feminism.
Kaur gained a following through Instagram and Tumblr about a decade ago by sharing her poetry via social media.
She later gained much popularity through her recent books, “Milk and Honey,” “Home Body and The Sun” and “Her Flowers.” Each is a collection of poems that vary in theme. Every page you turn pulls you in deeper conveying another message, another story.
Family, love, heartbreak, immigration and loss are just a few of her themes. Kaur does more than this. She goes beyond the “accepted” topics in society and shines a light on topics that are often silenced. For instance, womanhood, sexual abuse, violence and trauma.
This is not something Rupi Kaur is unfamiliar with. Outside of her publications, her Instagram was another platform she used to interact and convey her messages to society.
Kaur is famously known for sharing photos depicting menstrual stains on her clothes and bedsheets, photos that quickly broke the internet. Some individuals believed that this was “gross” and not to be shared with the internet, but this is the reality of women and it should not be silenced.
Kaur breaks the barriers of what is okay to discuss and what is not okay to discuss in society, challenging individuals to have those conversations about femininity, sex, abuse, trauma and so much more. These are things that are occurring in our society daily and our silence is ignorant.
Each of Kaur’s pieces holds value in its message. She gives a voice to the experiences of many. She normalizes experiences of women and allows individuals to feel represented through her work, whether it’s just one poem or all. Her work has empowered women all over the world and continues to do so.
As March is Women’s History Month, it is important to shine a light on individuals who work to empower women in their daily lives. Kaur’s poems continue to provide a voice to women’s struggles and daily lives. Here are some of my favorite pieces:
- “Our work should equip / the next generation of women / to outdo us in every field / this is the legacy we’ll leave behind / progress”
- “Apparently it is ungrateful of me / to mention my period in public / cause the actual biology / of my body is too real / it is okay to sell what’s / between a women’s legs / more than it is okay to / mention its inner workings / the recreational use of / this body is seen as / beautiful while / its nature is / seen as ugly”
- “Other women’s bodies / are not our battleground”
- “I want to apologize to all women / i have called pretty / before i have called them intelligent and brave / i am sorry i made it sound as though / something as simple as what you’re born with / is the most you have to be proud of / when your spirt has crushed mountains / from now on i will say things like , you are resilient / or, you are extraordinary / not because i don’t think you are pretty / but because you are so much more than that”
- “I stand / on the sacrifices / of a million women before me / thinking / what can i do / to make this mountain taller / so the women after me / can see farther / legacy”
- “Whats the greatest lesson a women should learn? That since day one. She’s had everything she needs within herself. Its the world that convinced her she did not”