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.