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?Collection: Anger
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.Collection: Beauty
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.Collection: Relationship
Poetry and art are key influences in changing how we look at taboos.Collection: Poetry
I don't fit into the age, race, or class of a bestselling poet.Collection: Age
There was no market for poetry about trauma, abuse, loss, love, and healing through the lens of a Punjabi-Sikh immigrant woman.Collection: Poetry
I love Roald Dahl, Sharon Olds, Nizar Qabbani, who is a poet, and Junot Diaz.
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 haven't had the opportunity to study visual art, but it was always my first love when it came to artistic expression. I started drawing and experimenting with visual art when I was 5.
Being that my parents and I were immigrants to Canada, I didn't have the most lavish life growing up.
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.
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 did not start out thinking I'm going to become a feminist poet. It was a tag I was given.
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.
I grew up thinking I was going to change the world, but not because I was treated like a special snowflake. It's a silly label. People are starving. We need to feed them. That's the end of the conversation.
My heart is beating, and I'm breathing, and nothing anybody has ever done has changed that.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Truth, honesty, empowerment - it's what I want for myself and my readers.
The way a small child might dream of visiting Disneyland, I dreamed of writing books. Never did I think my poems would become that.
Just because someone tells you they love you, it doesn't mean they actually do.
You have to really understand that although certain memories or stories make you sad, you are not sad. Pull yourself out from that emotion and remember that.
When things get better, there's a swing to the pendulum where things get worse for others.
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.
I realize I'm blessed to have the luxury of being a full-time writer. Not many people have that.
I've been thinking a lot about the journey of my parents - just seeing the sacrifices they've made to allow me to do what I do. How much of a difference their sacrifices have made through the generations.
I write from the various experiences I live. Not every poem comes from my personal experience, though. It could be something that a friend lived, or a person from my community here, or a woman anywhere around the world.
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.
When I'd hang out with guy friends, I'd say things like 'I just don't get along with other girls.' Just so they could think I was cooler, you know? Shamelessly trying to level myself up by putting other women down. God it's so embarrassing to admit, but it's important cause I want people to know about the growth. That I'm not perfect.
Social media has been such a big platform for my success. But it can also be a toxic place.
People like that I wrote a book - that's cute, but oh, making a business out of it? That's not nice.
Before I begin to write, I listen to music that inspires me. I listen to folk Punjabi music, sufi music.
'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.
I used to submit to anthologies and magazines when I was a student - but I knew I was never going to be picked up.
I would give anything to sing like Beyonce or Adele. I've said many times to my friends that if I could sing like them, I would give up poetry and writing.
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.
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.
I was always writing for myself. I wrote what I needed to write and hear - that's what makes it powerful.
'You're beautiful' was the compliment I craved so much. I didn't care if people called me smart or innovative - it was the number-one compliment I gave out to other women hoping it was given back to me. I heard people saying it to my best friends. It was the one I wanted to hear more than anything else.
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.
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.
Why are brown women bullying brown women for body hair? Why are brown women bullying brown women for the same traits we all have?
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 want to leave behind a literary legacy.
When writing for the page, the focus is on the design - how the words appear on the page. I try to make it as direct and simple as possible.
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 always wrote stories, but I do remember a particular moment in middle school where I became passionate about essay writing.
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.