If I body-shame a woman, it is more a reflection of me being critical of my body, me not being able to keep up to certain standards I have, and so making sure that the women around me feel the same way.
Rupi KaurRead
There was no market for poetry about trauma, abuse, loss, love, and healing through the lens of a Punjabi-Sikh immigrant woman.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the lack of representation for specific experiences in poetry.
Rupi Kaur's quote reflects on the challenges faced by marginalized voices, particularly those of Punjabi-Sikh immigrant women, in the literary world. It emphasizes how personal and cultural narratives related to trauma, love, and healing often go unnoticed in mainstream poetry, suggesting a need for broader acceptance and inclusion of diverse stories in the arts.
In practice
During a literary festival discussing marginalized voices in poetry.
If I body-shame a woman, it is more a reflection of me being critical of my body, me not being able to keep up to certain standards I have, and so making sure that the women around me feel the same way.
There have been articles saying that all women need to read my book. I ask, why not all men? In fact, that would be even more valuable because we women want to sit down with men and tell them - this is how we feel, this is what we go through.
When I was little, my dad told me about Anandpur Sahib and the court of Guru Gobind Singh. That we came from a tradition of poets, warriors and artists who created when it was illegal to create... we're groomed to be reckless in the defense of what we feel is right.
I wasn't entitled to dream so big. The idea of me being a writer wasn't even possible in my mind. Even when I began to write and first published, I couldn't call myself a writer.
The way a small child might dream of visiting Disneyland, I dreamed of writing books. Never did I think my poems would become that.
I was always writing for myself. I wrote what I needed to write and hear - that's what makes it powerful.
An incinerator is a writer's best friend.
And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook, with the photographs there and the moths.
One wants one's work to be the world, but of course it's never the world. The work is in the world; it never contains the whole thing.
The workmanship was better than the subject matter.
Pictures aren't made out of doctrines. Since the appearance of impressionism, the official salons, which used to be brown, have become blue, green, and red...But peppermint or chocolate, they are still confections.
It doesn't bother me when people try to deconstruct my songs - because at least they're looking at the lyrics, and paying attention to the way the story is told.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.