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Rupi Kaur was born in [[Punjab, India]], to a [[Sikh]] family and emigrated with her parents to [[Canada]] when she was four years old. As a child, she was inspired by her mother to draw and paint, especially at a time when she was unable to speak in English with the other children at school.<ref name=":4">{{Cite news|url=https://www.rupikaur.com/bio/|title=bio {{!}} rupi kaur|date=2016-11-17|work=Rupi Kaur|access-date=2017-04-15|language=en-US|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170415202252/https://www.rupikaur.com/bio/|archive-date=2017-04-15}}</ref> She used to write poems to her friends on their birthdays or messages to her middle school crushes.<ref name="Kaur Life">{{Cite web|url=https://kaurlife.org/2014/11/20/milk-honey-poet-exposes-heart/|title=Milk & Honey: A Poet Exposes Her Heart|date=2014-11-20|website=Kaur Life|access-date=2016-10-08}}</ref>
Rupi Kaur was born in [[Punjab, India]], to a [[Sikh]] family and emigrated with her parents to [[Canada]] when she was four years old. As a child, she was inspired by her mother to draw and paint, especially at a time when she was unable to speak in English with the other children at school.<ref name=":4">{{Cite news|url=https://www.rupikaur.com/bio/|title=bio {{!}} rupi kaur|date=2016-11-17|work=Rupi Kaur|access-date=2017-04-15|language=en-US|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170415202252/https://www.rupikaur.com/bio/|archive-date=2017-04-15}}</ref> She used to write poems to her friends on their birthdays or messages to her middle school crushes.<ref name="Kaur Life">{{Cite web|url=https://kaurlife.org/2014/11/20/milk-honey-poet-exposes-heart/|title=Milk & Honey: A Poet Exposes Her Heart|date=2014-11-20|website=Kaur Life|access-date=2016-10-08}}</ref>


She studied rhetoric and professional writing at the [[University of Waterloo]], Ontario.<ref name="Kaur Life" /> Kaur and her family moved around many times before settling in [[Brampton]], where she lived until recently.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=http://www.flare.com/culture/rupi-kaur-milk-and-honey-the-voice-of-her-generation/|title=How Rupi Kaur Became the Voice of Her Generation|date=2016-11-11|newspaper=Flare|language=en-US|access-date=2016-12-08}}</ref> She currently resides in [[Toronto|Toronto, Ontario]].<ref name=":0"/>
She once studied rhetoric and professional writing at the [[University of Waterloo]], Ontario.<ref name="Kaur Life" /> Kaur and her family moved around many times before settling in [[Brampton]], where she lived until recently.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=http://www.flare.com/culture/rupi-kaur-milk-and-honey-the-voice-of-her-generation/|title=How Rupi Kaur Became the Voice of Her Generation|date=2016-11-11|newspaper=Flare|language=en-US|access-date=2016-12-08}}</ref> She currently resides in [[Toronto|Toronto, Ontario]].<ref name=":0"/>


== Career ==
== Career ==

Revision as of 15:19, 16 February 2018

Rupi Kaur
Rupi Kaur reading from her book milk and honey in Vancouver in 2017
Kaur in 2017
Born (1992-10-05) 5 October 1992 (age 31)
Punjab, India
OccupationAuthor, poet
LanguageEnglish
CitizenshipCanadian
Notable worksMilk and Honey, The Sun and Her Flowers
Website
rupikaur.com Edit this at Wikidata

Rupi Kaur (born 5 October 1992) is a Indian-Canadian poet, writer, illustrator and performer of Punjabi descent. She self-published a book of poetry and prose titled Milk and Honey in 2014, which was later picked up by Andrews McMeel Publishing in 2015. The book deals with themes of violence, abuse, love, loss, and feminism. As of 2017, Milk and Honey has sold over a million copies and reached number one on the New York Times bestsellers list.[1] Her second book The Sun and Her Flowers was released on October 3, 2017.

Early life

Rupi Kaur was born in Punjab, India, to a Sikh family and emigrated with her parents to Canada when she was four years old. As a child, she was inspired by her mother to draw and paint, especially at a time when she was unable to speak in English with the other children at school.[2] She used to write poems to her friends on their birthdays or messages to her middle school crushes.[3]

She once studied rhetoric and professional writing at the University of Waterloo, Ontario.[3] Kaur and her family moved around many times before settling in Brampton, where she lived until recently.[4] She currently resides in Toronto, Ontario.[4]

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 societal menstrual taboos.[5]

Throughout high school, she anonymously shared her writing, and in 2013 she began sharing her work under her own name on Tumblr. Kaur took her writing to Instagram in 2014 and began adding simple illustrations. All of her work is written exclusively in lowercase, and the only punctuation used is the period. In the Gurmukhi script, there is only one case and only periods are used. She decided to write this way to honour her culture. She also says 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's easy to follow for the reader, with simple drawings to elevate her words.[6] Common themes found throughout her works include abuse, femininity, love, and heartbreak.[7]

Milk and Honey

Kaur's first book is an anthology titled Milk and Honey (stylized as milk and honey). A collection of poetry, prose, and hand-drawn illustrations, the book is split into four chapters, and each chapter deals with a different theme.[3] The sections are titled "the hurting", "the loving", "the breaking", and "the healing". Kaur designed the book from cover to cover, illustrating pictures that were woven in with her words. Amidst warnings of being barred from prestigious literary circles, Kaur originally self-published the book of poetry on Amazon in 2014.[8] The book was so popular that Andrews McMeel Publishing decided to pick it up for a second print in October 2015.[8] The book was on the top-seller list for Canadian literature on Amazon. It also landed in the number two spot on Amazon's bestseller list for poetry. The collection made it to the New York Times bestseller list and remained on it for 52 consecutive weeks. As of April 2017, it has sold over a million copies.[1]

As of June 2017, Milk and Honey has been translated into over 25 languages, including a popular Spanish edition translated by the famous Spanish writer Elvira Sastre entitled, Otras Maneras de Usar la Boca.[9]

The Sun and Her Flowers

Kaur announced her second book, The Sun and Her Flowers (stylized as the sun and her flowers), in July 2017[10] and released it on October 3, 2017. The book is divided into five chapters: "wilting", "falling", "rooting", "rising" and "blooming". Like her previous book, The Sun and Her Flowers is also a poetry anthology consisting of poems that celebrates all the forms of love, with most of the poems accompanied by a picture.[11] This book also explores a variety of themes ranging from loss, trauma, healing, femininity, migration and revolution.[12]

Influences

Rupi Kaur says she draws inspiration from other people's stories and experiences, as well as her own.[13] Notable writers that she admires are Kahlil Gibran, Alice Walker, and Sharon Olds. She is also influenced by Sikh scriptures in her writing and her life.[3] She has said that empowerment is her favorite thing to write about because "it's like becoming my own best friend and giving myself the advice I need".[14]

Controversies

Social media controversies

In March 2015, as part of a photo project for a university class, Kaur posted a photo of herself lying in bed with menstrual blood stains on her sweatpants and her sheets on Instagram.[15] The picture was part of a menstruation themed photo series to destigmatize taboos around menstruation.[16] On her Instagram page, Kaur makes an explicit statement about such stigmatization, noting that "a majority of people. societies. and communities shun this natural process. some are more comfortable with the pornification of women. the sexualization of women. the violence and degradation of women than this. they cannot be bothered to express their disgust about all that. but will be angered and bothered by this."[17]

Instagram removed it – and the other photos in the series – because the picture didn't "follow (their) Community Guidelines".[18] Kaur took to Facebook to critique the removal of the post: "Thank you Instagram for providing me with the exact response my work was created to critique. You deleted my photo twice stating that it goes against community guidelines. I will not apologize for not feeding the ego and pride of misogynist society that will have my body in an underwear but not be ok with a small leak when your pages are filled with countless photos/accounts where women (so many who are underage) are objectified, pornified, and treated less than human."[19]

The picture on Facebook went viral and was shared by thousands; later, Instagram apologized, saying it had removed it by mistake.[16] The image cannot be found on Kaur's page, implying that either she or Instagram had removed it from the page.[when?]

Plagiarism allegations

In April 2015, poet Nayyirah Waheed released a statement[20] disclosing that she e-mailed Rupi Kaur in December 2014 about Kaur's poetry having "extreme hyper similarity" to her own in "Salt." and requested a cease and desist of her book. Kaur had mentioned previously in an interview that Waheed was one of her major inspirations. Several articles have been written discussing these plagiarism allegations but Kaur has not yet responded to their request for questioning.[21]

In August 2017, PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at Stanford University, Chiara Giovanni analyzed Kaur's poetry, concluding "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."[22] Kaur did not respond to her request for a response either.

A fan tumblr page, rupi-kaur, of over 16,000 followers was closed[23] after the fan found out about plagiarism allegations on poet Laila Re's Instagram account. The owner of the account messaged Re sharing her support. Re and artist, Meena Saifi, found that Kaur's recent illustrations were "eerily similar" to their collaboration as well as poetry. They have created comparisons of the works in question and have not received a response from Kaur.[24]

References

  1. ^ a b Desk, BWW News. "#1 New York Times Best Seller MILK AND HONEY by Rupi Kaur Hits One Million Copies". Retrieved 15 April 2017.
  2. ^ a b c "bio | rupi kaur". Rupi Kaur. 17 November 2016. Archived from the original on 15 April 2017. Retrieved 15 April 2017.
  3. ^ a b c d "Milk & Honey: A Poet Exposes Her Heart". Kaur Life. 20 November 2014. Retrieved 8 October 2016.
  4. ^ a b "How Rupi Kaur Became the Voice of Her Generation". Flare. 11 November 2016. Retrieved 8 December 2016.
  5. ^ 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.
  6. ^ "thetimesofindia". Rupi Kaur. 31 July 2016. Retrieved 15 April 2017.
  7. ^ "milk and honey Themes - eNotes.com". eNotes. Retrieved 7 June 2017.
  8. ^ a b Kassam, Ashifa (26 August 2016). "Rupi Kaur: 'There was no market for poetry about trauma, abuse and healing'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 8 December 2016.
  9. ^ "Feminismo, violación y pérdida: así es la poesía de Rupi Kaur". La Vanguardia. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  10. ^ The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur, Andrews McMeel Publishing
  11. ^ Kaur, Rupi (October 2017). the sun and her flowers (First ed.). London, New York, Sydney, Toronto, New Dellhi: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4711-6582-5.
  12. ^ "about | rupi kaur". rupikaur.com. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
  13. ^ Charleston, Erin Spencer Digital Marketer in; SC (22 January 2015). "Rupi Kaur: The Poet Every Woman Needs To Read". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 8 December 2016.
  14. ^ Jain, Atishsa (22 October 2016). "A poet and rebel: How Insta-sensation Rupi Kaur forced her way to global fame". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 8 December 2016.
  15. ^ "Student's final project goes viral and makes change happen - period". 7 May 2015. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  16. ^ a b "The picture Instagram didn't want you to see". The Independent. 30 March 2015. Retrieved 8 October 2016.
  17. ^ "Instagram post by rupi kaur • Mar 25, 2015 at 4:02am UTC". Instagram. Retrieved 1 March 2017.
  18. ^ Lese, Kathryn. "Padded Assumptions: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Patriarchal Menstruation Discourse". commons.lib.jmu.edu. James Madison University.
  19. ^ Sanghani, Radhika (30 March 2015). "Instagram deletes woman's period photos - but her response is amazing". The Telegraph. Retrieved 8 October 2016.
  20. ^ http://aliahatch.tumblr.com/post/115222210212/nayyirahwaheed-loves-it-is-with-a-truly-heavy
  21. ^ "Did Rupi Kaur plagiarize parts of 'Milk & Honey' from this Tumblr poet?". babe. 24 July 2017. Retrieved 15 January 2018.
  22. ^ Giovanni, Chiara. "The Problem With Rupi Kaur's Poetry". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 15 January 2018.
  23. ^ https://www.instagram.com/p/Bdy7P6ygb-R/?taken-by=lailare_
  24. ^ "Instagram post by Laila Re • Jan 13, 2018 at 1:59pm UTC". Instagram. Retrieved 15 January 2018.
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