Pop Star Of Poetry

Poetry and social media seemed like strange bedfellows until Rupi Kaur’s poems shook up Instagram with millions of ‘Likes’. And that isn’t the only thing she’s shaken up.

- Nivedita Jayaram Pawar

Rupi Kaur is a stark contrast to her dark, depressing and serious poetry. The 25-year-old Indian-born Canadian is gregarious, charming and quite goofy. “There are days when we're all sad. But I am not sad all the time. I really want my readers to know that part of me as well,” she says about her latest book The Sun and Her Flowers. Her debut book Milk and Honey has sold 2.5 million copies worldwide and has sat comfortably on the New York Times bestseller list for 78 weeks—a rare feat for any author these days and even rarer for a poet.

But Kaur is no ordinary poet. She built her explosive success on the strength of social media. Kaur started sharing her poems about love and loss, abuse and healing on Instagram in 2014 while still in college. The response was so overwhelming that she selfpublished her first poetry book. Her Instagram account has over 1.6 million followers (including Sam Smith and Ariana Grande) and thousands more on Facebook and Twitter. “The reason why poetry is filling in perfectly today is because we live in a quickpaced world with so much noise. Poetry just jumps at you in the middle of all that noise and forces you take a pause and feel your emotions.”