Photograph: © Rupi KaurĬlutching a copy of Kaur’s book, photography student Rebeca Gutierrez, 23, agreed. View image in fullscreen A poem from Rupi Kaur’s new anthology. “She really gets to the raw emotion of life – but puts it in a human way. “She has changed the way that a lot of us think about poetry – she’s dusted off its cobwebs,” said Daniella Bassett, 20, queueing for the Brighton show. The audience was predominantly female, twentysomethings, mostly students. This month in Brighton, tickets to her performance sold out in less than 45 minutes, her London show in less than 10. She is in Sydney this weekend, as part of a tour that has seen her take in Britain, Spain, New Zealand and, next month, Canada. One of the poems in Milk and Honey goes like this: Rather like a rapper, she tells it how it is. “People aren’t used to poetry that’s so easy and simple,” she says.Īnd that is key to why Kaur has connected so strongly with millions of young people worldwide. Milk and Honey is a collection of poems that tackles tough themes – rape, violence, alcoholism, trauma – but it’s written in Kaur’s trademark short, simple verse – with her own illustrations acting as visual punctuations. I was posting stuff online just because it made me feel relieved – as a way of getting things off my chest.” “I wasn’t trying to write a book, it wasn’t even in my vision. “My book would never have been published without social media,” she says. Followers came in their droves – 1.3 million of them at the last count (though notably she follows no one). She took a stand against Instagram, pointing out the hypocrisy of a platform that hosted sexual images of women yet censored a typical female experience. She was catapulted into the limelight after Instagram banned a self-portrait photograph, in which she is seen lying on a bed with menstrual bloodstained sheets. Read the full interview, only on The Laterals Magazine Issue 07.Kaur is one of a burgeoning group of young “Instapoets”, so called because they have shot to fame after building up huge followings on social media. We have a friendly, and frank chat with Rupi to find out more as she makes her way through her World Tour stops, expected to roll over to Europe until end of October 2022. It is the universal themes that Rupi Kaur touches on - love, loss and healing, among others - that make her live performances a compelling, and cathartic experience.

She’s also sold more than ten million copies of her three poetry collections (milk and honey, the sun and her flowers, home body), singlehandedly transforming the way many people relate to poetry. For every critic that insists on checking her to abide by poetry’s “rules”, there is a fan that will drown all that noise with social media reposts, tattoos of her illustrations and tickets to her live performances. The truth is, Rupi Kaur is a dazzling yet polarizing figure that has spawned never- ending think pieces about her cult-like status and her simplistic style of poetry. She’s a modern-day Bard decked in custom-made dresses that demand a stage big enough to hold all that she brings to the table - this is the Queen B of all of the Instapoets. Where does Rupi Kaur stand in all of this? She’s a trailblazer who self- published her debut poetry collection milk and honey when she was still in university, when creative writing professors made it clear no one would be interested. This is “Insta-poetry”, where writers publish their poems on social media to gain traction, and millions of devotees. You’ll find mutuals that have definitely reposted her words (and accompanied illustrations) after a breakup, International Women’s Day or as a motivational good morning message. You’ve seen her bite-sized poems and snippets of her performances go viral on social media. You might not admit it, but you know who Rupi Kaur is. Enter Rupi Kaur, a Punjabi Sikh immigrant from Canada, who has disrupted the modern literary world with her brand of approachable poetry. When we think of poetry, it’s easy to imagine serious stanzas that we decipher in stiff lecture halls.

Rupi kuar tour