In Conversation With Rupi Kaur

The bestselling 25-year-old poet talks to Smitha Menon about poetry in the time of Trump, her relationship with India and her airport tricks. 

- Smitha Menon

In the world of Trump and capitalism, what role does poetry have to play? In our world today, like, there’s so much noise and movement happening, that poetry forces you to take a moment and reflect. In the initial pitch of my book—the sun and her flowers—I never planned to write a chapter on immigration. But that was when the Presidential Inauguration was happening. I was in the States and there was all this talk of deportation in the air. I realised that my poetry is a response to what’s happening to me and around me and that’s where that chapter of the book came from. So that if you’re scrolling through your feed to get away from it all, you’re forced to pause.