![]() Whenever I was on my period, my mum would say, ‘You’re sick, you can’t go outside!’ or ‘Don’t ride your bike, honey!’ but I would do it anyway and then I would get, ‘Your mother-in-law is going to hate you, no-one’s going to marry you!’. ![]() They have all these crazy wives’ tales about what brings it on sooner. Her first question was, ‘But you don’t even eat chocolate and ketchup! How did this happen to you?’ Back home, maybe because of food and hormones, everyone’s period comes at 18. I felt so much shame telling her, and her reaction went from shocked, to disappointed and scared. My first thought was, ‘I’m not a girl anymore’ and the next was, ‘Shoot, I have to tell my mum!’. RK: It was at the end of eighth grade and I cried so much. Do you remember the day you first got your period? If there’s a 15-year-old girl dealing with horrendous circumstances and no one to protect her, she might just read one poem that empowers her to save herself.ĪG: Okay, this is a great point to talk about periods, given that period poverty affects so many women and girls across the world. I sometimes feel like it’s my life mission to not let women suffer on their own, like my mother and her mother before. RK: Exactly! When I have low days, I just force myself to remember who I’m writing for: young women everywhere. Throughout history, teenage girls have always been completely disregarded and underestimated, and I think the real reason poetry via social media has not been taken seriously is because of the fact it attracts teen girls. ![]() Of course, most of the ‘Insta-poets’ facing backlash are women.Ī post shared by rupi kaur You’re being criticised for all the things that young people, and especially women, want: the vulnerability and honesty. They say that I’m an ‘Insta-poet’, not a ‘poet’ and I’ve had a lot of criticism saying that my work is too confessional or too emotional basically, all the bullshit that they label women with. RK: The traditional poetry world has a big problem with social media. I followed her advice and got rejected, obviously, because I’m sending poems about sexual abuse and body hair to a magazine about the Canadian environment and landscape!ĪG: How do you feel about being labelled an ‘Insta-poet’? It seems to me quite demeaning, like saying ‘ female chef’ or ‘ women’s football’… She said that it is viewed as cheating, ‘Nobody picked you’, and told me to send my poems to literary magazines and anthologies instead. When I was younger, I was told by my professor that I shouldn’t self-publish on the internet, because it surpasses the traditional gatekeepers and therefore, the industry will want nothing to do with me. RK: It has opened up the industry to a whole new demographic: women and women of colour. 'It’s my life mission to not let women suffer on their own'ĪG: Do you think social media is to thank for this resurgence? I was so over-prepared that my conscious mind left during the whole 18-minute talk. I memorised it like it was my full-time job I would recite it in the car, in the shower, I even had it recorded, so that when I wasn’t memorising it, I was listening to it. Apparently, most people start writing their speech a year in advance, but I got sick for seven weeks beforehand and ended up writing it a month before the show. ![]() ![]() Rupi Kaur: I’ve never practised for anything more in my life. I remember it so well, your delivery completely blew my mind. Here they discuss the power of teenagers, how poetry became cool and of course, periods:Īmika George: I first came across you in your Ted Talk ‘I’m Taking Back My Body’, which I stumbled across on the day I finished my A Level exams. These trailblazers (both on the 2018 ELLE List) have made it their mission to improve the lives of girls and women across the world. At 17, Amika started the #FreePeriods campaign (after discovering that, in the UK, an estimated 49 per cent of girls have missed an entire day of school because of their periods) and two years on she has succeeded in securing a government scheme funding free sanitary products in secondary schools across England in a bid to end period poverty. ![]()
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