Really, at the end of the day, the only thing you can control is yourself; the only person you can truly educate is yourself. You have to redefine what beauty is to you so you can't be affected by what people are saying.
Rupi Kaur
Just because someone tells you they love you, it doesn't mean they actually do.
Feeling 'ugly' or 'unattractive' seeps into your life like poison, and it affects everything. Feeling worthless does the same. We internalise these limitations, and it takes an internal revolution to get rid of them.
In high school, I started saving up to get a nose job, which is so ridiculous. I had this job at Tim Hortons, and I was trying to save up $10,000 for a nose job.
My parents didn't allow me to do all the things the cool kids could do. I was quiet, reserved, and at some points, taken complete advantage of simply because of my sex and gender. For a while, in high school, I was so deep into self-hate.
With immigrant parents, they've had to sacrifice so much to survive, and they're trying to preserve the culture they lost, so there are just so many boundaries.
The trauma of South Asian people escapes the confines of our own times. We're not just healing from what's been inflicted onto us as children... it is generations of pain embedded into our souls.
I realize I'm blessed to have the luxury of being a full-time writer. Not many people have that.
I'm a brown girl from a Punjabi pind raised in Toronto. I don't expect literary critics and purists to understand the nuances of my experiences, and the experiences of the people around me... And my tradition holds that there is a magic in the written word. So how I write, what I write of, and why I write all comes naturally.
My heart is beating, and I'm breathing, and nothing anybody has ever done has changed that.
I can sit down with my sisters, and they can talk about my body in a certain way, and I will laugh about it with them. That's such a comfortable and loving relationship. But if a stranger I meet in a party makes the same comment, depending on their tone, that's not okay.
When things get better, there's a swing to the pendulum where things get worse for others.
I feel social media can be very distracting, unhealthy, and harmful to one's self-confidence. I don't even log on to it on my phone except when I post something on Instagram.
My dad studies and practices homeopathy and Ayurveda medicine. He's a strong believer in both honey and milk as forms of healing. Honey is the one food that does not die. It does not expire. Growing up, he'd always be mixing up almonds or turmeric or gram flower with milk to cure a cough or a cold.
I was born in India, and we came from a poor family and lived in a rural village. My dad came over to Canada as a refugee, and years later, we were able to join him.
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.
Why are brown women bullying brown women for body hair? Why are brown women bullying brown women for the same traits we all have?
I want to create a collection, almost like a trilogy of sorts. Whereas 'Milk and Honey' was very much like holding a mirror up to yourself, the second book is turning that mirror around and fixing it on the world. The book is a reflection of the times we are in.
'Milk and Honey' was written with me being honest to myself, kind of pulling at the things that I hear the most and saying that out loud, and you know, that thing that we hear the most is most universal, and so that rings true with all folks. The language used in the poetry is extremely, extremely accessible.
How do you redefine love when your idea of love is something that's so violent? When your idea of passion is anger, how do you fix that?
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.
There was no market for poetry about trauma, abuse, loss, love, and healing through the lens of a Punjabi-Sikh immigrant woman.
Growing up, I naturally embraced who I was, but I was always battling with myself. So I spent half my time being proud of being a woman and the other half completely hating it.
I like B.C. because it's so beautiful, but I think Toronto's the greatest place because every corner of the world is here.
A lot of Indian fathers don't know how to show affection. My parents really do love me, even though my dad has never been able to say those words to me.
My gut is so strong. I feel like I have a lot of books in me, and they're going to come out because I said so. It's going to happen.
I think I only started to speak to people in grade four.
My writing is a product of how I would interact with things that have happened to me or things that have not happened to me but have happened to somebody else.
I sat with myself one day and asked, 'Who is in those prestigious literary circles? Do they represent me? Do they appreciate the topics I write about and the style in which I write? Do those gatekeepers let a demographic like mine through the door?' And the answer was no.
My favourite character in fiction was probably either James from 'James and the Giant Peach' or Ender from 'Ender's Game.' They were just ordinary people who were living under various amounts of struggle, and just to follow their journeys and see them break out of that and live extraordinary lives - I think that gave me a lot of hope as a kid.
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.
Poetry and art are key influences in changing how we look at taboos.
I always wrote stories, but I do remember a particular moment in middle school where I became passionate about essay writing.
I have always been a fan of Salvador Dali, but Amrita Sher-Gil, who was an Indian-Hungarian painter, is another favourite. She was painting Indian women, and, growing up here, I'd never seen anyone paint Indian women, so that was really incredible to see a painting of someone who looks like you. I think that has a lot of impact on you.
I was always writing for myself. I wrote what I needed to write and hear - that's what makes it powerful.
For me, the power of the poetry in 'Milk and Honey' is the feeling you get after finished reading the poem. It's the emotion you feel once you've read the last word, and that is only possible when the diction is easy, and you don't get stuck on every other word, you don't know what the word means.
Why are we so terrified of a natural process that allows for life to be brought into this world? Why do we scramble to hide our tampons when we pull them out of our purses?
We are not outraged by blood. We see blood all the time. Blood is pervasive in movies, television, and video games. Yet, we are outraged by the fact that one openly discusses bleeding from an area that we try to claim ownership over.
I won the speech competition in class, and I always say this was my first 'spoken word performance.' It was the first time I got on stage and recited something. I fell in love with the stage at the age of 12.
I don't fit into the age, race, or class of a bestselling poet.
It was tough to cope with the pressure of having to talk about menstruation, but now with 'Newsweek' splashing it as the cover story, I thing the point I wished to make has found its mark.
I used to submit to anthologies and magazines when I was a student - but I knew I was never going to be picked up.
Before I begin to write, I listen to music that inspires me. I listen to folk Punjabi music, sufi music.
I did not start out thinking I'm going to become a feminist poet. It was a tag I was given.
The pain that all people experience in life and the light that helps them champion through it all - it's their lives and their stories and their love and will to keep living that moves me to write.
People like that I wrote a book - that's cute, but oh, making a business out of it? That's not nice.
Social media has been such a big platform for my success. But it can also be a toxic place.
I wasn't trying to write a book; it wasn't even in my vision. I was posting stuff online just because it made me feel relieved - as a way of getting things off my chest.
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.
I love Roald Dahl, Sharon Olds, Nizar Qabbani, who is a poet, and Junot Diaz.
