Clara Ganz
Ms. Mathes
AP Literature, period 7
12 December 2018
Rupi Kaur’s Poetic Representation of Sexual Violence
“when you broke into my home
it never felt like mine again”
–Rupi Kaur, “I’m Taking My Body Back”
What happens when someone breaks into your home? When your body is attacked? Put poignantly by 26 year old poet Rupi Kaur, “It makes you feel robbed, like you don’t even own your own body…They own it, and you’re living in it on rent.” (“I’m Taking”) In her TED Talk entitled “I’m Taking My Body Back,” Kaur shares that as a result of moving over twelve times in her life, she never found a place to call home. Because the roof over her head was constantly changing, the idea that home was a physical structure never made sense to her. Instead, she likened the one thing that followed her wherever she travelled to being her home: her body. Looking though the lens of sexual violence, Kaur explores the experiences of people who have been made to feel homeless in their own body. The feelings of helplessness and emptiness she unpacks through her words are a common element that run through each of Kaur’s poems that deal with sexual abuse.
In many of her poems, Kaur wrestles with the emotional fallout that results from the trauma of sexual violence. Published in 2015, the poem “no was a bad word” discusses consent and is central to the repetition of the word “no.” In the poem, the speaker talks about how the word “no” was simply not a part of her vocabulary growing up. Then the focus of the poem shifts to the speakers experience of a nonconsensual intimate experience with a man. The poem is ultimately about how the speaker struggles to say no to sex that she does not want to have because of the obedience and sense of inferiority ingrained in her by her parents as a child. (“no was a bad word”) In the second poem “at home that night,” the speaker talks about her experience immediately following being raped and the way she copes with the initial trauma. The speaker physically tries to wash away the traces of her abuser by taking a hot bath and then recounts her experience in each of the four hours following her rape. The poems depicts the utter helplessness the speaker experiences as she feels like her is body is no longer her own. Ultimately the speaker is so broken that in “the fourth hour [she] prayed.” (“at home that night” 30) Finally, in the poem “the first boy that kissed me,” the female speaker talks about the first time a boy kisses her at age 5. She describes how the boy, “held my shoulders/like the handlebars of/the first bike/he ever rode,” (“the first boy” 2-5) and compares his aroma to that of her fathers after his regular sexual abuse of her mother. The poem then discusses how this experience not only causes, but also normalizes, the resulting feeling of emptiness because the speaker is so young and doesn’t know any better. (“the first boy”) In Rupi Kaur’s poetry, language, sound, and structure devices convey the complexity of coping with sexual violence and the resulting experience of helplessness and emptiness.
Born in 1992, contemporary poet Rupi Kaur immigrated from Punjab, India to Ontario, Canada with her family at age four. Her journey in poetry began as a hobby when in middle school she would write poems accompanied by drawings for friends on their birthdays or just for fun; however, as she grew up and moved through high school poetry took on a new importance as it became a cleansing practice and way for her to deal with and process her emotions. (Groen) Kaur started sharing her poetry on Tumblr in 2013 and then on Instagram in 2014. She has since gained a massive following of over 3 million followers and has been termed by many as the “queen of insta-poets” and “voice of her generation.”(Kirch) Kaur has redefined poetry in this modern age by making it accessible to the masses through social media and appealing to an audience of young women by delving into the highly relatable emotions surrounding topics like love, loss, abuse, trauma, femininity, self-care, and heartbreak. Though the experiences and emotions she unmasks in her poetry are deeply personal, Kaur hopes that by publishing her work for the world to see, she can help people recognize they are not alone in their suffering while giving them the courage to confront and overcome their individual struggles. (Groen) Among her more controversial topics are Kaur’s poems that deal with sexual violence and the resulting emotional fallout. In an interview with Teen Vogue, she talked about a time when a reporter asked her if and how she had been raped, assuming that she had been based off the poems from her first book milk and honey. She believes that these questions were aggressive and deeply unfair to be asked in front of a camera and responded saying, “For me, writing about the violence I've experienced, that's very cathartic…I share it because I honestly don't want anyone else to feel alone and feel sad if they've also experienced those things” (Cerón). While she admits that not all of her work is autobiographical in its content and that the experiences of her friends and relatives often inform what she writes about, it can be strongly inferred that Kaur has had some type of personal experience with sexual abuse that influence the topics of many of her poems. (Cerón)
In the poem “no was a bad word in my home,” the speaker discusses an experience of sexual abuse and why she was unable to say no to the man forcing himself on her. While this poem has only one large 24 line stanza, there are three clear sections. In lines 1-6, the speakers talks about her home life during her childhood. These lines discuss how her parents “erased” (“no was a bad word” 3) the word “no” from her vocabulary. The act of opposing her parents was met with violent consequences provoking a deep fear that instilled in the speaker a strict sense of obedience as a child. In lines 7-17, the speaker describes how this obedience that her parents ingrained manifests itself as she is being sexually assaulted. As a male is forcing himself on her, the speaker describes how she longs to scream “no” but physically cannot find a way to break her own silence. These lines use a metaphor that compares the speakers body to a building with no exits and personify the word “no” as a girl who is desperately trying to escape the building but cannot. These language devices lend themselves to the threatening atmosphere and state of panic the speaker experiences. In the remaining 7 line of the poem, the speaker reflects on the implications the habit of silence her parents ingrained in her as child have on her now. She calls on “parents and guardians” (“no was a bad word” 19), whose inherent duty is to guide and protect, to consider the way they teach their children to be obedient. The speaker encourages parents and guardians to realize that while obedience might be convenient for them, t teaching strict obedience can have dangerous consequences on children when they grow up and involve themselves with people who might not be as pure of heart. In Kaur’s “no was a bad word in my home” language and sound devices depict the sense of panic and helplessness the speaker experiences as a result of not being able to verbalize the word “no” when she is being sexually abused.
In the middle section of the poem, metaphor and personification work together to depict the speaker’s experience of feeling powerless and helpless, thus creating a threatening atmosphere. While a man is forcing himself on her, the speaker personifies the word “no” as a girl trying to escape her body: “i heard no pounding her fist/on the roof of my mouth/begging to let her out.” (“no was a bad word” 12-14) The diction “pounding” and “begging” suggest the aggressive nature in which “no” is trying to escape. Relating the word “no” to a girl who is trapped inside the speaker parallels the experience of the speaker who is trapped underneath a man. This personification depicts the sense of panic the speaker experiences and works in conjunction with the metaphor immediately following. When she says, “but i had not put up the exit sign/never built the emergency staircase/there was no trapdoor,” (“no was a bad word” 15-17) the speaker compares her body to a building from which the word “no” cannot escape. The images of an emergency staircase and trapdoor are unique because they are not the typical way of exiting a building. These uncommon methods indicate that the speaker feels the need to escape rather than just leave. And even though it is her parents fault, the speaker feels as though she is responsible for not having created the exits, and thus partially responsible for being sexually assaulted. The obedience ingrained in her as a child traps the speaker, rendering her helpless in the face of danger. and creating an atmosphere of crisis and emergency.
In addition to the function of metaphor and personification, the sound device sibilance and repetition throughout the entire poem also contribute to the threatening mood and highlight the genuine struggle of the speaker as she fails to verbalize the word “no.” When a male is forcing himself on her, the speaker exclaims, “when i tried to scream/all that escaped me was silence” (“no was a bad word” 10-11) The sibilance created by the harsh “s” sound in “scream,” “escape,” and “silence” help depict the experience of panic the speaker has as she struggles to say “no.” This sound helps contribute to the atmosphere of alarm and panic as the speaker is unable to escape the impending danger. The poem also repeats the word “no” 5 times and italicizes it each time it appears. The repetition combined with the italicization emphasizes the simplicity of the word and makes it the central focus of the poem. This repetition, in conjunction with the fact it is a simple, one-syllable word, highlights the genuine struggle the speaker is facing trying to force it out of her mouth. The speaker’s body knows what it wants, or what it doesn’t want, but the word itself is so foreign to her vocabulary and the mindset of verbalizing it is so unnatural, that she doesn’t know how to say it even when she needs to.
Unlike the way “no was a bad word” focuses on the roots of sexual abuse and why it happens in the first place, the poem “at home that night” talks about the speaker’s experience coping in the immediate aftermath of being sexual assaulted. While the poem is one large 30 line stanza, there is a clear shift in structure after the first 10 lines. In those first 10 lines, the speaker talks about a bath she runs for herself. She fills the tub with “scorching” (“at home that night” 2) water and mixes in things like spearmint, almond oil, milk, honey, salt, and rose petals. (“at home that night” 3-8) She then soaks her herself in the mixture saying that she is “desperate to wash the dirty off” (“at home that night” 10) implying that she has somehow been made unclean. The remaining 20 lines of the poem represent the four hours following the speaker’s bath. In the first hour, the speaker talks about picking pine needles from her hair, courting them out, and lining them up. (“at home that night” 11-14) In the second hour, she “weeps” and “howls” to the point where she hardly recognizes herself. (“at home that night” 15-18) In the third hour, she examines herself and finds that the “sweat,” the “bite marks,” and the “smell” on her body are not her own but recognizes the “blood” is. (“at home that night” 21-28) Additionally, the speaker states that the “white between [her] legs” (“at home that night” 22) was not hers which suggests that the “dirty” she is so desperate to wash off comes from being raped. And finally during the fourth hour, the speaker prays. (“at home that night” 30) In Kaur’s “at home that night” language and structure devices depict the deep sense of desperation sexual abuse ingrains in the speaker as well as the emotional complexity of her coping process.
Diction and symbolism in the first third of the poem convey the speakers experience of desperation and longing for hope after being raped. At the beginning of the poem, the speaker runs herself a bath, and is clear to emphasize that the water is not warm, not hot, but “scorching.” (“at home that night” 2) Baths are typically meant to be cleansing, healing, and relaxing; however, near-boiling water would be anything but comfortable to soak in. The speaker is so desperate to cleanse herself of the dirtiness she feel from being sexually abused, that in her mind, the hotter the water the better. She would rather endure the physical pain of burning her skin if it might, even for a second, take her mind off the mess of emotions inside her head. Aside from just the water, each additional thing the speaker mixes into the water symbolizes something that the she emotionally longs for. When she feels debilitated and broken, she adds “spearmint” (“at home that night” 3) which symbolizes protection, healing, and virtue. When her body has been violated in the most personal way, she adds “almond oil” (“at home that night” 4) which signifies sweetness, marital happiness, and the purity of virgins. At a time of brokenness and depression, she adds “milk/and honey” (“at home that night” 5-6) symbolizing promise and female power. When she has been dirtied and defiled by another, she adds she adds “salt” (“at home that night” 7) as a disinfectant. And at a time where she is filled with pain, hatred, and betrayal, she adds “rose petals” (“at home that night” 8) which symbolize loyalty, love, honor, and devotion. Because the speaker can’t actually make herself feel whole, protected, healed, nor loved, she surrounds herself with things that embody the emotions she longs to feel again. Clinging to the hope that the contents in her bathtub signify show just how desperate the speaker is to fill the emptiness inside herself.
In the second two thirds of the poem, diction and repetition work together to illustrate the diversity of the speaker’s emotions and the complexity of her experience coping with rape. With the last 20 lines of the poem split up into four hours, each separate hour represents a different emotion and different experience the speaker has as she tries to process what just happened to her. In the first hour, the speaker “picked pine needles from [her] hair/counted them one two three/lined them up on their backs” (“at home that night” 12-14). In the immediate aftermath, the speaker’s preoccupation with the pine needles illustrates the state of shock and she is in. She is so petrified by what has just happened to her body, that she doesn’t know what else to do other than try and distract herself. In the second hour the speaker transitions from a state of emotional numbness to losing complete control of herself. She doesn’t cry, she “[weeps]” (“at home that night” 16). She doesn’t yell, she “[howls]” (“at home that night” 17). She doesn’t call herself an animal, she calls herself a “beast” (“at home that night” 17). This diction is powerful and exposes the extremity of the speakers emotions. The wild nature in which she lets out her emotions depicts her newfound experience of anger and rage. In the third hour, the speaker examines her own body. The repetition of the phrase “not mine” (“at home that night” 21,23,25,27) after she discovers her rapist’s sweat, semen, bite marks, and smell on her body emphasizes the speaker’s experience of otherness. Someone took control of her body and left her feeling like an outcast in a place where she once felt so comfortable. In the fourth hour the speaker’s experience of helplessness shifts to complete desperation when she starts praying. (“at home that night” 30) The speaker is so completely overwhelmed by pain that she doesn’t know what else to do other than turn to God and hope for a miracle. The structural choice to organize the second portion of the poem into hours is very effective in illustrating the complexity of the speaker’s experience trying to cope. It shows that there isn’t just one emotion or way to feel and that those emotions are constantly changing, ebbing, and flowing.
While the poem “at home that night” focuses on the coping process immediately after being raped, the poem “the first boy that kissed me” focuses on the long term implications of experiencing sexual violence at a young age. In the poem, the speaker, age five at the time, talks about the aggressive nature in which a boy kisses her for the first time and the way it affects her. Unlike the other two, this poem has some structure and is split into four different stanzas. In the first stanza, the speaker compares the way the boy handles her body to that of the way he would grip the handlebars of the bike he was learning to ride. (“the first boy” 1-6) In the second stanza, she switches to talking about the correlation between her experience and the experience of the boy’s parents each night. According to her, the boy had a smell of hunger on him “which he picked up from/his father feasting on his mother at 4 a.m.” (“the first boy” 9-10). In the third stanza the speaker talks about how the boy normalized in her, because she was so young, the idea that her “body was/for giving to those that wanted,” (“the first boy” 12-13) and set standard for what relationships between men and women look like. In the final stanza, the speaker relates her experience of emptiness to that of the boy’s mother at 4:25 in the morning. (“the first boy” 16-18) In Rupi Kaur’s “the first boy that kissed me” language devices create an aggressive and threatening atmosphere conveying the speaker’s helpless experience of nonconsensual intimacy.
Simile and imagery create an atmosphere of nonconsensual intimacy, which help convey the speaker’s experience of helplessness. At the beginning of the poem the speaker establishes that the topic of the poem is about the first boy that kisses her; however, it does not happen in the romantic and idealistic way any young girl would hope it to. She says that he,
held my shoulders down
like the handlebars of
the first bicycle
he ever rode (“the first boy” 2-5)
When learning to ride a bike, the goal of the rider to be in complete control over the bike. Because of this, the way the speaker objectifies herself as a bike is particularly effective in depicting her experience of non-consensuality. Held beneath a boy whose only goal is to exert his power and control, the speaker is left defenseless. Contributing further to her state of helplessness, the speaker also notes that she was only five years old at the time. In addition to speaking about herself, the speaker compares her experience to that of the mother of the boy who is regularly sexually abused by her husband. The speaker talks about “his father feasting on his mother at 4 a.m.” (“the first boy” 10) and then later compares her feeling of emptiness to “his mother at 4:25 a.m.” (“the first boy” 18) At four in the morning, it is likely that the mother is half asleep and unable to fully consent to what is happening. This specific 25 minute time frame is significant because implies they are not having consensual sex and she is indeed being raped. Additionally, the timing in the middle of the night exposes the father’s power-driven motives as he treats her like a toy he can use for pleasure at his own convenience.
In addition to imagery which lends itself to the speaker’s experience of helplessness, diction and simile create an aggressive and violent tone that help depict the dysfunctionality of relationships where sexual violence exists. When the speaker describes the way the boy’s father abuses his mother, the speaker uses diction that compares the experience to a meal. Words like “starvation” (“the first boy” 8) and “feasting” (“the first boy” 10) exert an aggressive tone that is indicative of the way he treats her. A key distinction to note is the difference each person gets out of the metaphorical “meal” the speaker creates. While the father fulfills his hunger and starvation, the mother is left “empty” and feeling “less than whole” (“the first boy” 15-17). In a similar way, the bicycle handlebar simile previously discussed also draws attention to the dysfunctionality of abusive relationships. Learning to ride a bike is a rite of passage for a child as it gives them their own form of transportation, and with that comes independence. While the boy learning to ride the bike gains power with his freedom, he simultaneously traps the speaker, dominating her power and independence. The disparity depicted in these two images between what each person gets out, or doesn’t get out, of an abusive encounter or relationship is particularly problematic. Because the speaker is so young, it sets for her a standard the way boys are to treat girls; it normalizes abusive tendencies and the resulting feelings of emptiness making them seem like they are acceptable.
One unifying element of Kaur’s poems is their similar sound and structure, or more specifically, their apparent lack of both. While Kaur chooses to write her poetry in lowercase and seldom uses punctuation in order to honor her Sikh heritage and culture, none of her poems on sexual abuse have a rigid, fixed form or implement any type of rhyme scheme. The poems “at home that night” and “no was a bad word” both consist of only one long stanza. And while “the first boy that kissed me” is split into four stanzas, the stanzas function primarily to facilitate the transition from one idea to another and do little to contribute to the experience of the poem. Some might use the lack of sound and structure devices to criticize Kaur’s poetry as simplistic and rudimentary when it actually serves a specific function and is particularly effective to convey the experience of sexual violence. Abuse by nature is traumatic, cruel, and in no way a black and white experience to try to navigate and comprehend. The unconventionality and unpredictability of the structure is indicative of the emotional chaos sexual abuse extracts from its victims. According to Sydney Hubbel of the University of Humboldt, “the lack of rhyme scheme gives the poem an organic, raw feeling.”(Hubbel) Along the same lines, Juliet Garcia agrees in an article for The Oxford Student that the sense of fluidity the lack of structures creates “removes any impersonality, and creates an organic poetry that refuses formalistic constraints.”(Garcia) Because sexual violence is not an experience that is idealized and beautified, the rawness the lack of sound and structure contributes is integral in Kaur’s poetry.
Due to Kaur’s lack of explicit sound and structure devices, graphic imagery is necessary to conveying the experience of helplessness while simultaneously depicting the power imbalance in relationships in sexually violent relationships. In fact, each poem has one image in particular that that works directly to convey that theme. The poem “no was a bad word” uses the image of the word “no” personified as a girl banging on the roof of the speaker’s mouth as a man is forcing himself on her to illustrate the helplessness of the speaker. (“no was a bad word” 12-14) The second poem, “at home that night,” uses the image of the bathtub and the symbolism of its contents to expose the speaker’s concealed desperation (“at home that night” 1-8). Finally, the poem “the first boy that kissed me” uses the handle bar simile to compare the way a boy holds the speaker down to the way the boy would grip the handlebars of a bike he was learning to ride to highlight the speaker’s experience of being trapped by the power of another. (“the first boy” 1-5) Because sexual abuse is graphic to talk about in a literal way, the poems rely heavily on multi-faceted imagery to convey a very specific message without being too explicit. Sexual violence is difficult to understand for those who have not experienced it; therefore, the creativity and specificity of Kaur’s images are necessary to convey the correct experience in just a couple of lines.
With the rise of #MeToo Movement in the past year, stories of sexual abuse captured headlines in every newspaper and worked their way into my daily conversations. having never experienced this type of violence in my life, I was of course sympathetic to all of the women standing up and sharing their stories; however, I felt like I could neither understood nor empathize with their experiences any deeper than the surface level. However, I feel like Rupi Kaur’s poetry that deals with sexual abuse has given a brief snapshot into what it is like to be forced deal and navigate sexual violence. And because each poem is different in their focus, each poem broadened a different aspect of my of understanding of sexual abuse. The poem “no was a bad word” challenged me to see the relationship between obedience and consent which I had not previously understood. When the speaker signs off at the end of the poem saying “-how can i verbalize consent as an adult/if i was never taught to as a child” (“no was a bad word 23-24) she villainizes parents and guardians who teach obedience to their kids in such strict sense that they don’t know how to stand up for themselves. Obedience might be taught to kids because it is convenient for parents but this poem exposed the difference between being well-behaved and doing what others tell you to without question. In a different way, the poem “the first boy that kissed me” deepened my knowledge of abuse in general. I knew that part of the reason abuse was so problematic was because of its cyclical nature tendency to repeat itself. This poem showed me however that this cycle not only manifests itself between two people but can be passed down from generation to generation. In the poem, the parallels between the behavior of father and son suggest that the boy inherited his abusive tendencies form his father. (“the first boy”) While spending time with the different experience from each poem may not have helped me empathize with those have have endured sexual violence, it did help me to understand the complexity of the coping process following the trauma. Just as there is no one way that people experience sexual violence, there is no single clear cut way people try to process the emotional fallout it causes.
Works Cited
Cerón, Ella. "Rupi Kaur Talks “The Sun and Her Flowers” and How She Handles Social Media’s Response to Her Work." Teen Vogue, Condé Nast, 4 Oct. 2017,
story/rupi-kaur-the-sun-and-her-flowers-interview.
Garcia, Juliet. "Poetry Review: The Sun And Her Flowers By Rupi Kaur." The Oxford Student,
21 Nov. 2017, www.oxfordstudent.com/2017/11/21/poetry-review-sun-flowers-rupi
kaur/.
Groen, Danielle. “Voice of Her Generation.” Flare, vol. 38, no. 10, Winter 2016, p. 58.
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Hubbel, Sydney. "Rupi Kaur’s Representation of Abuse Analysed." Odyssey, 10 Oct. 2016,
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Kaur, Rupi. "at home that night." 2017. the sun and her flowers, Andrews McNeels Universal,
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–. "the first boy that kissed me." 2015. milk and honey, Andrews McNeel Universal, 2015, p. 12.
–. “home.” 2017. the sun and her flowers, Andrews McMeel Universal, 2017, p. 70.
–. “I’m Taking My Body Back." TED Talks, 2 Sept. 2016. Youtube, uploaded by TED, 2 Sept. 2016.
–. "no was a bad word in my home." 2017. the sun and her flowers, Andrews McMeel
Universal, 2017, p. 90.
Kirch, Claire. “Rupi Kaur: Bestselling Poet.” Publishers Weekly, vol. 263, no. 52, Dec. 2016, p.
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