Tabeer Sami

I knew it was only a matter of time before someone asked, given how popular her poetry is. To clarify, I don’t have a problem with her as a person. I’ve heard she’s lovely, and I think it’s great that she has been so successful at such a young age. It gives a lot of other young, aspiring authors hope. It’s just that her poetry is not my cup of tea.

The short explanation is: to me, her poetry reads like motivational posters. 

If you read on, you are subjecting yourself to me ranting about Literature and accessibility and what is considered Art etc. Just a warning.

Now, there is nothing wrong with being motivational. A lot of people find it very useful and inspiring. My problem comes when it gets shoved into poetry. I think that her poems are very easy to read, very relatable, and have a very clear message. And personally, I don’t like poetry that is so obvious. That, to me, is not the point of poetry. Poetry is an art because you might have a poem that is, for example, 100 words, but it can take you weeks, months, years to fully understand what it is trying to tell you. It might make you feel something immediately and you have to figure out why, how the author has created these moments and images and emotions.

And Rupi Kaur’s poetry takes like two seconds to understand. Which is fine! A lot of people like that. But that’s not what I read poetry for. (I should also state that I am a picky bitch when it comes to poetry I like.)

I think perhaps there could be an argument made that her writing is appropriate for now, when people supposedly are losing their attention spans and we might not have the time or desire to read a poem that hides its meaning in metaphor and simile and clever syntax. While my personal opinion is that her poetry is not as skillful as many others’, I can see arguments for that being exactly the reason why we should read her. Let me explain.

Canonical Literature, things that are considered classics or contemporary writing that wins awards (generally literary fiction) tends to follow very strict patterns, of which being rather… opaque or difficult to understand is one of the main characteristics. Not all “good” writing is like that, but generally speaking, it is valued in academia, and in literary circles. However - that kind of writing tends to be alienating to a lot of readers. It can be very elitist, very white, very male, very anti-genre fiction. So in a sense, Rupi Kaur’s writing style, the fact that she is a young WOC writing in arguably the most elite of writing forms and being successful af at it, is a slap in the face to that elitism. For that reason, I like it.

Accessibility is another issue, and a way for people to keep outsiders on the outside. Kaur’s poetry is accessible, and it draws a large audience because of that. Literature is not used to being accessible. Being difficult to understand is one of the ways that academic writing keeps people from being welcome. We aren’t talking about academic writing, but it’s a good metaphor for what happens in fiction as well.

But there is also a difference between being accessible, and being minimalist, one of which is actually very facile and surface-level (which Kaur’s poetry is, to me), and another that is a struggle and a challenge and evokes emotion (which Mark Rothko’s art is, to me).