0:15

Pushkin. This

0:33

is Talk Easy. I'm standing Fragoso.

0:37

Welcome to the show.

0:51

Today.

0:52

In honor of National Poetry Month, we're

0:54

returning to our conversation with Rupy

0:56

Khorr. She's the author of four

0:59

poetry collections, including Milk

1:01

and Honey, The Sun and Her Flowers,

1:04

Homebody, and Healing Through

1:06

Words. Collectively, those books

1:08

have sold over twelve million

1:10

copies. That's not a typo, and

1:13

have been translated into over forty languages.

1:16

Her debut collection, Milk and Honey,

1:19

which she actually self published as a

1:21

student in college, has become one of

1:23

the highest selling poetry books of the twenty

1:25

first century. Again not

1:27

a typo. That debut arrived

1:30

a decade ago now, and to celebrate

1:32

its anniversary this year, Core will

1:34

be re releasing the book on October

1:37

first. This special edition also

1:39

includes a new chapter, an

1:41

archive of original photos,

1:43

and a whole bunch of diary entries

1:46

that she's excavated from these past ten

1:48

years. To pre order the book and

1:50

to learn more about Rupee and her work,

1:53

be sure to visit our show notes at talkeeasypod

1:56

dot com. When Rupy and

1:58

I first sat in the spring of twenty twenty

2:00

two, she was about to embark on what became

2:02

a sold out global tour. These

2:05

shows are poetic, theatrical

2:08

experiences where she addresses themes

2:10

of family, love, heartbreak,

2:12

and womanhood. And so today

2:15

we'll be revisiting some of those pieces, including

2:17

a couple personal poems inspired by

2:19

her childhood in Canada as part

2:21

of an immigrant family from Punjab,

2:23

India. We also dive into how

2:26

she's processed trauma through writing the

2:29

emotional Toll in the last decade

2:31

and the aftermath of her Milk and Honey

2:33

fame. With that, I want

2:35

to issue a quick warning here at the top.

2:38

It's the same warning I gave listeners back

2:40

in twenty twenty two, which is that some

2:42

of the poems and stories shared in this conversation

2:45

include details of sexual

2:47

violence. They're certainly not the bulk

2:50

of this conversation. It doesn't dominate

2:52

the dialogue, but it is part of it.

2:55

We've marked those moments in the description

2:57

of this episode, which you can find on

2:59

your phone or on our website at

3:01

talkeeasypod dot com.

3:03

As always, if you want to give us feedback

3:06

or suggest future episodes, you

3:08

can reach us at sf at talk

3:10

easypod dot com. We'll

3:12

be back next Sunday with a new episode

3:15

of the podcast. It is with someone

3:17

that I don't want to spoil it, but it

3:19

is with someone that I've been trying

3:21

to have on Talk Easy for

3:25

five six years now, So stick

3:27

around for that until then. Here

3:30

is one of my favorite conversations of twenty

3:32

twenty two with the one and only rupeecre.

3:36

Enjoy

3:47

rupe Core.

3:48

Nice to meet you, Nice to meet you. How

3:50

are you feeling?

3:51

I feel good, A little bit tired.

3:53

I had a show last.

3:54

Night, but I

3:56

feel grateful and excited to be here.

3:59

You're about to embark on a

4:01

forty one city global

4:03

tour. Is that correct?

4:05

I think even more cities than that. It's more

4:07

cities than that, definitely. We're near fifty

4:09

where definitely nearing like seventy

4:12

ish seventy. There's lots of stops

4:14

that haven't been announced yet, and then there's

4:16

lots coming in other parts of

4:18

the world in twenty twenty three.

4:20

I just don't like to think about that part.

4:23

Yeah, let's not think about that.

4:24

Yeah, it's stressful. Let's think about

4:26

the the Let's think about the next two

4:28

months. And it's forty cities.

4:32

Rupe's like, I want to go home. Now you're

4:34

going to travel across the US,

4:37

Canada, Mexico, Europe,

4:39

the UK. For most people, this

4:42

would be a very daunting undertaking.

4:46

How does one prepare for something like this?

4:48

You know what I feel like. I spent the last twelve

4:50

years preparing. This is the first

4:53

time I'm intentionally doing it. Whereas

4:55

you know, I hit stage as teenager

4:57

in high school. They didn't even know what I was doing.

5:00

I was just a sad teenager

5:02

who's not a sad teenager. And I saw

5:05

this little flyer. It was like a local

5:07

open mic night and I was like, well, everything

5:09

is wrong with my life already. Things

5:11

can't get anywhere, so let me go see what this is

5:14

about.

5:14

How old are you here?

5:16

Sixteen seventeen?

5:18

And I went and it was

5:20

such a nice feeling. I feel like it

5:23

was the first time I felt hurt.

5:24

And listened to.

5:25

So I was like, I love this. I want to come do it again.

5:28

So I was just doing open mics.

5:30

I loved it.

5:31

It was a hobby and it snowballed into

5:33

a self published book and then these

5:36

tours and I feel like I got

5:38

on this train and the train

5:40

never stopped like I was expecting it to

5:42

like let me off, and it kept

5:45

going and going and going and going until

5:48

twenty twenty the pandemic hit

5:50

and I was like, okay, wow,

5:52

so I've been going NonStop. Now

5:55

I get to stop and be

5:57

still. I guess all

5:59

those years prepared me for this next

6:02

tour. Those shows were tough

6:04

because I had no clue how to take care of myself.

6:06

So I feel like I've fingers crossed seen the worst

6:08

of it, and now I'm going in knowing what

6:11

I need and what I can do, and

6:14

I feel very good about it. Like I used to get nervous

6:16

before every other show

6:18

that I did, and for some reason,

6:20

my first show back after two and a half years

6:23

was this Saturday, and it just

6:25

inside my body is like a steady heartbeat.

6:27

I don't get nervous, I don't get excited. It just

6:30

is because I'm like, Okay, finally,

6:32

let's go.

6:33

I want to walk through all those train

6:36

stops that you're talking about. I

6:38

think to do that, we have to go back to

6:40

your childhood. Isn't it true that your

6:42

first performance came in performing

6:45

classical Indian music? What

6:47

was that experience? Like?

6:49

Definitely not an experience I chose for myself.

6:52

It was like, you know, immigrant

6:54

parents trying to make sure their kids don't

6:56

lose their culture and heritage. And

7:00

I was going to opunjubby classes on weekends,

7:02

learning to read the language, write the language.

7:06

I grew up in Malton and

7:08

Brampton, which are two very heavy

7:10

working class immigrant suburbs in Canada,

7:13

in Ontario, so it was very

7:15

normal for all of the kids to learn

7:18

music, and so I

7:20

did enjoy it. I did enjoy

7:22

it. I did it for about seven years.

7:25

That was the first sort of being on

7:27

stage experience I ever had, singing

7:29

and playing the harmonium.

7:31

I gotta say the way you're saying I

7:33

enjoyed it, I think

7:35

you're saying it so reluctantly.

7:38

I did enjoy it.

7:40

It was scary. I'm not gonna lie that. My teacher

7:42

was like, very scary.

7:45

How so a lot of tough love.

7:48

Very normal in our community him virgilately.

7:50

But if I got a note wrong, you

7:53

just smack my hand and start

7:55

screaming away. You

7:57

know, it's being twelve years old,

7:59

thirteen fourteen. I would be like, oh my god,

8:02

every day I'm just going to go to get yelled at. And would we

8:04

be preparing for competitions, it

8:06

would be that every single day for weeks.

8:09

From that experience, what propels

8:11

you into wanting to do that?

8:13

If that first experience is it's fun,

8:16

but there's this sort of restrictive element

8:19

to it. I know you ended up pivoting

8:21

a little bit into speech competitions

8:24

in middle school? Were those also

8:27

kind of daunting and scary?

8:29

I actually I think I did it for like sevenish

8:31

years. I never wanted to stop. Was

8:33

it scary? Were there bad days?

8:35

For sure?

8:36

But I think I did love it because

8:38

it is such a meditative experience

8:41

and a very communal experience

8:43

that you have with your people. And then the

8:45

speech competitions, that was really

8:48

a teacher who was like, I want you to do

8:50

this, try it, And

8:52

I'm like writing a speech about the War of eighteen

8:54

twelve, and like, I don't even remember

8:57

what I said, but I do remember that

8:59

speech.

8:59

It was seventh grade.

9:00

Was the first time I think most people probably

9:03

heard me speak because I grew up so

9:05

shy.

9:06

Is it true you didn't learn

9:08

English till the fourth grade.

9:10

Definitely didn't know it in kindergarten, and

9:13

then in grade one and two

9:16

I was learning it, but

9:18

like grade three four, I was good. I was

9:20

talking to my one friend that I had.

9:22

You moved from India to Canada around

9:25

age three and a half. The

9:27

idea that by seventh grade

9:30

that person is like I'm gonna do speech

9:33

competitions is kind of remarkable.

9:36

Did you think, Wow, this is I can't believe I'm doing

9:38

this.

9:38

In seventh grade, definitely, I

9:41

was like what am I doing? Why am I doing

9:43

it? And regretting it the whole time. But

9:46

you know, he was His name was mister Vermont, and

9:49

he was just like one of those teachers that

9:51

like definitely changed my life.

9:53

How So he sort of just saw me.

9:56

I feel like, when you're in a class of

9:58

like thirty people, that quiet individual

10:01

who sort of like blends into the background is

10:03

usually never seen. And that was usually

10:06

my life, and I was comfortable

10:08

with that. He was like, no, no, no, you

10:11

very much like pushed me out of my comfort

10:13

zone. But I was definitely reading

10:15

more than I was speaking out loud, and so

10:17

I think that's where my love for books came from.

10:20

And then people like mister Vermont in seventh

10:22

grade continue pushing me in

10:24

that direction.

10:25

I mean I was the same way. Yeah, I

10:27

didn't people.

10:28

Before also like third graders,

10:31

nobody should be friends with third graders

10:33

are horrible. Kids are so mean.

10:36

Kids are mean. Yeah, and I was very

10:38

sensitive.

10:39

How did that manifest?

10:40

I feel like my mom always says that I was

10:42

one way in Punjab when we lived

10:45

there, and then I was a completely

10:47

different person when we landed in Canada

10:49

and we arrived in this like cold

10:52

city. We arrived in Montreal the year

10:54

of this horrible ice storm, and

10:56

it just was like everything

10:58

sort of about me flipped.

11:00

On your website in twenty sixteen,

11:03

you wrote, I was always stuck between two

11:05

worlds, but never fully belonging

11:07

to one, on a land that does not want

11:09

me. Coming from a land that no longer considers

11:12

me its own, I had no place

11:14

to call mine. I had to build a bridge

11:16

between these two worlds and attach them

11:19

together to build my own foundation.

11:22

Do you think the foundation of

11:24

that bridge started when

11:27

your mother told you try drawing?

11:30

I think so. Drawing was

11:33

for sure the first thing

11:35

that I learned to do for myself. There

11:38

was not much that we had access to. I

11:40

remember pencil crayons, drawing,

11:43

and there was an older bunjabbisick

11:45

couple upstairs. Maybe they're in their

11:47

seventies. I called her Auntie. She

11:49

would take sequence off of her clothing

11:52

and we would sit and we would make little

11:54

elephants and little animals

11:56

out of them. And that immediately

11:58

became the thing that I would do when

12:01

I was feeling too much, when there

12:03

was a situation happening at home, or

12:06

I could sense any form of stress,

12:09

step away.

12:10

And I would be drawing.

12:11

You said, as a child, I turned to expression

12:14

because there was a lot going on at home that

12:16

I didn't know how to deal with. Like

12:19

I said, you moved from India to Canada.

12:22

Your father was a long distance truck

12:24

driver while your mother held

12:26

down the fort. What was going on at

12:28

home, It.

12:29

Was just us as individuals, but just

12:32

a larger sense of what was going on with

12:34

us as a community. Like, for

12:36

example, my dad was a refugee

12:39

to Canada. He has

12:41

injured and seen things at

12:43

the hands of like the Indian state that are horrible.

12:46

I think that definitely changes a person.

12:49

When we were reunited

12:51

with him, because I didn't

12:53

see him for the first three and a half years of my life.

12:55

He wasn't there when you were born, right, No, he wasn't.

12:58

He was trying to get out because

13:00

the police had picked him up, and then

13:03

they were targeting at the time, any visible

13:05

sick minority men with

13:07

a turbine beer. Young boys

13:10

as young as thirteen were being disappeared,

13:12

and so people were like, shit,

13:15

we got to go. Tens of thousands

13:17

of people went missing and we still don't know where they are.

13:19

So that generation carries

13:21

all of that trauma, and like, those were the people

13:24

that I grew up with. I know uncles who have scars all

13:26

over their bodies from being tortured

13:29

bullet wounds. That was like

13:31

something I've been used to for my entire life

13:33

since I was young. When I was reunited

13:36

with my dad, he was definitely a different person.

13:38

We've never really talked about that,

13:41

but I think it impacted his mental

13:43

health a lot. There's no such thing as

13:45

mental health in my community yet, like learning

13:47

kind of deal with that. So the

13:50

home was where that sort of stress came out. Not

13:52

in a physical way, but I

13:54

was very scared of him. I was a

13:56

really timid kid, and I think the

13:58

weight of all the mothers to all the

14:01

wives eventually came over. Of these men

14:03

who had fled, they don't know English,

14:05

they're stuck in these homes all day and

14:08

they were pressed, and so many

14:10

of them wanted to go back, but there was nothing to go

14:13

back too. I just took that

14:15

in and I sort of stored it.

14:17

And how did your mom deal?

14:18

She's very, very strong. She did

14:20

really well, a lot better than the other moms.

14:23

What do you mean my mom was able

14:25

to? And I'm not saying that this is the right way to

14:27

do it, There is no right way, but she sort

14:29

of just went numb to it all and survived

14:31

for her kids and just put

14:34

everything within us. And I know so many

14:36

other people weren't able

14:38

to and experience

14:41

lots of like suicidal ideations

14:43

and attempts, but my mom,

14:45

for some reason, was just

14:48

like she had four kids. I

14:50

know that she went numb because I asked her the

14:52

day that I graduated. She came to my graduation and we

14:54

were driving back home together, and I was like, how

14:57

did that make you feel? Like when you were all

14:59

in Montreal and all the wives were together,

15:01

and can you tell me the

15:04

emotions, like what were you feeling?

15:06

And She's like, I don't understand the question. And

15:08

I was like, what do you mean you don't understand the question?

15:10

For forty five minutes. I tried to explain to her what

15:12

an emotion is, and I was like, just like, what

15:15

did you feel sad? Did you feel like

15:17

this? And she didn't answer the question. She

15:19

was very confused, and that's

15:21

when I was like, oh, now I know

15:23

why you're still here. She actually

15:26

lost her brother a year before she

15:28

got married, and then a year after

15:31

she got married. She was an immigrant, so I think

15:33

from that point on she got very used to

15:35

just going and going and sort

15:38

of not processing.

15:40

Is there a piece in Milk

15:42

and Honey that you think kind of encapsulates

15:44

what you're talking about here?

15:47

There's definitely You.

15:48

Looked at the cover of the book like you almost forgot the title.

15:54

Performance.

15:58

Okay, I'll stop giving you any shit.

15:59

Okay, No, all good,

16:02

Okay, let's read it. Father.

16:05

You always call to say nothing in particular,

16:09

ass what I'm doing or where I am, And

16:11

when the silence stretches, oh

16:13

my god, I think I'm gonna cry. Okay, this

16:16

is what happens when you stop taking medication

16:18

and you are like feeling real emotions again.

16:22

Who bother? You

16:24

always call to say nothing in particular.

16:27

You ask what I'm doing or where

16:29

I am, and when the silence stretches

16:32

like a lifetime between us, I

16:34

scramble to find questions to keep

16:36

the conversation going. What

16:39

I long to say most is I

16:41

understand that this world broke you. It

16:44

has been so hard on your feet, and

16:47

I don't blame you for not knowing how

16:49

to remain soft with me. Sometimes

16:53

I stay up thinking of all the places

16:55

you're hurting, which you'll never

16:57

care to mention. I

16:59

come from the same aching blood,

17:02

from the same bone, so desperate

17:05

for attention that I collapse

17:08

in on myself. I am

17:10

your daughter. I know the

17:12

small talk is the only way you know how

17:14

to tell me you love me, because

17:16

it's the only way I know how to tell

17:18

you.

17:20

You read the first line, you were good.

17:23

You read the second line, and something was

17:26

produced. Yeah, what was going on?

17:29

I don't know.

17:30

It's been a while since I've even felt my own

17:33

poetry. I think I'm only

17:35

recently beginning to feel it again. I used

17:37

to feel it when I first wrote it, and then

17:39

I got on that train and it was so fast

17:42

that I stopped feeling any of it, and

17:44

then I got extremely depressed,

17:47

and now I'm not anymore. Hence I'm

17:49

off the medication, trying that, And

17:51

so now I read it and I experience it

17:53

all like exactly what I was feeling

17:56

when I wrote that. The weight of it sort of hits

17:58

me and I'm brought back into that.

18:01

It feels very human. Yeah,

18:03

I don't mind it.

18:04

What were you feeling when you wrote it?

18:06

I have this like one

18:09

year, especially with my father, because in

18:11

our community, the men definitely

18:15

do not know how to talk about anything.

18:17

They are very like scary figures who are

18:20

like, I'm going to work, make sure you

18:22

memorize your multiplication tables,

18:24

and then they disappear, and.

18:26

It's always math.

18:27

It's always math.

18:29

And beyond that, we never

18:31

really had a relationship as his

18:34

daughter, and we've had a very complicated

18:36

relationship that I think is finally

18:39

not complicated anymore. And so my

18:41

biggest fear is my dad

18:43

is sixty years old this year.

18:46

And then I do the math and then I'm like, what, you have

18:48

thirty years left or twenty

18:51

and that's not a very long time, and

18:53

will I learn

18:56

more about you between our

18:58

time is done? And I know that he

19:01

wants to have conversations now like

19:03

we never saw him growing up. He was definitely absent,

19:05

but that's because he had to be. And

19:08

now I I see him as

19:10

this sixty year old man who

19:13

was like so tired, so physically

19:15

sick from this like labor work, and

19:17

I see him wanting to have a relationship

19:20

with his children and wanting to know them

19:22

at an age when his children are like now grown

19:25

and gone. And I know that he will

19:27

never learn how to have a conversation and

19:29

I will have to learn how to have a conversation

19:32

with him, and that's so much responsibility. But

19:34

I know that I need to figure my shit out and

19:36

learn how to have that conversation before he

19:39

leaves this place, and I have to live with

19:41

that regret forever.

19:43

You're not alone in that fear.

19:45

Yeah, I realize that recently, as

19:48

have been like sharing those kind of anxieties

19:50

around with my parents, that so many people

19:52

feel that too.

19:53

It's that weird push and pull because

19:57

you are twenty nine. I'm twenty

19:59

seven.

19:59

My god, you're so young. When

20:02

I first listen to your podcast, i'ming this

20:04

person has to be fifty because

20:06

you're so well spoken.

20:08

Oh okay, sure that was a compliment.

20:10

No, it's definitely a compliment. Yeah

20:12

yeah, yeah, so well spoken.

20:13

God, he sounds shifty and uh three.

20:16

I think this person has probably seen so

20:18

much talking to you know so

20:20

much like you talk a Marina Brahimg Margaret

20:23

Atwood.

20:23

I love those conversations.

20:25

Well, thank you, But we're at that

20:27

age you're only two years older than I

20:29

am where you do think we're

20:31

living our lives, and yet our

20:33

parents are in that sixty age

20:36

range where they're now kind

20:38

of getting comfortable with

20:40

sharing. It sounds like my parents were a little

20:42

more forthcoming. But nevertheless,

20:45

that lingers for me, and I know it lingers for people

20:47

listening. There's always an expiration

20:49

day, there.

20:50

Is, but it almost

20:52

feels like the moment we do realize

20:54

that it's there, it almost feels like,

20:56

shoot, there's like.

20:57

Not enough time. You

20:59

have some work to do to figure that out. Yes, but

21:02

it has to be a two way street, you know

21:05

it does. Even if you got to

21:07

drag him, he still has to be willing.

21:09

He is willing, he's willing.

21:11

I just it's so hard to

21:14

start the conversation. We don't talk

21:16

in my family like we talk. My

21:18

dad loves to talk philosophy,

21:21

politics, Oh, but when it comes to

21:23

feelings, barely.

21:24

Ever do you think that's why you turned

21:27

to the page.

21:28

Definitely.

21:29

My dad had this rule growing up that we

21:31

weren't allowed to cry in the house.

21:33

That's a great rule.

21:34

Yeah, and I cried a lot.

21:36

There was a running joke that, oh, I'm so sensitive

21:39

that I would cry at the snap of anybody's

21:41

fingers, and it was true. And if you

21:43

cried, you would get yelled at. I don't know why. I

21:45

think it was seen as a sign of weakness, but now I

21:47

see it as like, Wow, you just maybe

21:50

didn't want us to cry because

21:52

you just were so holding

21:54

it like this. You didn't want to see anyone

21:57

else do it, and you told yourself and

21:59

you told everybody that it's bad

22:01

and that it's weakness, and that was your way

22:04

to survive. But now you

22:06

know, we cry all we want at home and he can't say

22:09

anything because there's four

22:12

women in the house and my

22:14

brother who will cry with us, and then him,

22:16

and he's like, oh, you're all ganging up

22:18

on me. None of this is fair.

22:20

It's the odd man out.

22:21

He is so funny. He spent

22:24

his entire life telling me how sensitive I

22:26

am, and now we're like, you are

22:28

the sensitive one.

22:29

Get it together.

22:31

We're really getting into the heart of this here.

22:33

Yeah, I wasn't. I wasn't expecting

22:35

to.

22:36

There seem to be more of a focus on the

22:38

act of crying rather than the

22:41

source of the tears. And

22:43

I don't know how you reconcile with that

22:45

now as you're growing up, But you

22:48

were saying that for the last twelve years

22:50

you've been on this train that hasn't

22:53

stopped. To understand that, I

22:55

think we have to go back to that

22:57

Instagram post of you. In

23:00

college at the University of

23:02

Waterloo, You're taking a class

23:04

for visual rhetoric. You create

23:06

this class project

23:09

for people that may not be familiar. What

23:11

was this project?

23:13

So I masured in rhetoric studies

23:15

and so the teacher professor

23:18

was like, Okay, I want you to

23:21

create some sort of visual works

23:23

that tackles taboo. And at

23:25

the time, I was dabbling

23:27

in photography a lot, because I always say poetry

23:29

is just one of many mediums that I use.

23:32

And so I had wanted to do this

23:34

work around menstruation periods

23:36

because like I've always struggled with my

23:38

period with endometriosis.

23:41

You had to go in and out of hospital.

23:43

Yeah, hospital visits when I

23:45

would get my period. It'd be so painful. I

23:47

just wanted to like hurt myself, and

23:49

my mom would have to like hold me down and be like

23:51

it's going to be fine, and I would be like, oh, I hate

23:53

being a girl. I hate being a girl. And

23:56

then I was like, I really need to stop saying

23:58

this and like start loving some

24:00

part of it somehow. And so I got this

24:02

idea. And then when the professor

24:05

was like, we want to work tackle some sort of taboos,

24:07

I was like, okay, periods like two birds with one stone.

24:10

So I

24:13

went back home to where my parents lived,

24:15

got my little sister to help me. We

24:17

show a series of six photos. My

24:19

mom was like, what are you all doing.

24:22

I'm more like concocting blood and stuff,

24:25

and she's like, I'm scared.

24:27

I don't want to I don't want to know. And unfortunately

24:30

everybody and their mom found out later

24:33

she was like, oh my god, I should have stopped

24:35

you. Anyways, I posted one of the images

24:37

online because we were studying the way people

24:39

react to the same art differently

24:42

depending on the space that it is in, So like if

24:44

you were to see them Mona Lisa in real life

24:47

in Paris, you would feel differently versus

24:49

seeing it like painted giane on

24:51

like the side of a building or like a stamp.

24:54

And so I took this photograph of me

24:56

lying down. It's kind of like how

24:59

so many women who men straight wake

25:01

up like, oh Saturday, shit, I

25:03

got my period and I have like a stain.

25:06

I posted it in different places. It was fine

25:08

on Tumblr, and it was fine in a lot of other

25:10

places, and then Instagram is where

25:12

it was not fine. I honestly didn't

25:14

think that it was going to be controversial because

25:18

at the time I'd been writing about sexual abuse

25:20

violence. I even was writing about

25:22

periods. So this photograph to

25:24

me was just like the regular, regular

25:27

thing that I was doing, which I think was very

25:29

naive of me to think, because those were just words

25:32

and this was a photograph, and this was

25:34

much more disturbing for some people. So

25:36

my readership they were

25:39

fine with it. But once that photo sort of

25:41

like left MySpace and got to other

25:43

spaces, Instagram removed

25:45

it, and then I posted

25:48

a second time, removed it again,

25:50

and then it ended up just sort of like going

25:53

viral, was on the front page

25:55

of everything in twenty fifteen. I was

25:57

so scared because

25:59

people were so mad. Fifty percent and

26:01

people were like, this is amazing, and the other fifty

26:04

percent were like, we are going to rape and kill

26:06

you.

26:06

And I was like, I'm so anxious now.

26:09

You said in Rolling Stone. I

26:12

think from that day this anxiety

26:14

came upon me that's never left, an

26:17

endless stream of hate that came from

26:19

every corner of the planet.

26:21

It was so much. I was like

26:24

regular kid, you know, going

26:26

to college, putting my little poems

26:28

up on Instagram. It was

26:30

like all of the opinions. Nobody told

26:33

me log off and stop reading this shit. So

26:35

I sat there taking in and

26:38

then it was like all of the emails coming

26:40

in. I don't know how people found out about my emails.

26:42

It was on the Punjabi radio

26:44

stations in my parents' hometown. Like

26:47

that's how my mom found out when

26:49

the Punjabi uncles are talking about it on the local

26:52

radio station, just to assume everybody knows

26:54

about it, and it's just and you know,

26:56

she was like, oh my god, why

26:58

did you do this. My dad was like, I don't

27:00

even get it. What's the big deal? People get periods,

27:02

move it along. And I was like, oh, thank god.

27:05

But it was really scary. I think

27:07

it was just like, it's not human to have that much

27:09

attention and it's not natural

27:11

to have that many eyes looking at you, and

27:13

that sort of catapult

27:16

people immediately started to treat me differently.

27:18

And you're twenty one years old.

27:20

Yeah, And it was like, oh, my followers

27:23

went from thirty thousand to over two hundred

27:25

thousand. And I'm very involved

27:27

in the sick community and community organizing,

27:30

and that week we had I think it was Sick

27:32

Heritage Month, and when I walked in,

27:35

it was just different.

27:36

People were like looking a particular

27:39

way.

27:39

It was if it's fine, it was nice, nobody was mean,

27:41

but I was like, oh, the way that you

27:44

look at me is like definitely changed

27:46

now, and it's sort of like never really

27:48

stopped. I actually was scared because I was like, oh,

27:50

no, I'm getting all this attention for like this

27:52

photograph, Like do they expect me to keep making these

27:54

photos? But I feel very appreciative

27:56

because like they came for the photo, but then they stayed

27:58

for the poetry.

27:59

It sounds like the way people saw you changed.

28:02

But did you start to see yourself

28:04

in a different way?

28:06

No?

28:07

I didn't.

28:08

People were like, like, wow, how does it feel

28:11

and I always said, I don't

28:13

know, it feels weird, like

28:15

I think you want me to say, it's so amazing,

28:18

But I'm just doing

28:21

this shit that everybody else is doing. I have to

28:23

go unload my dishwasher, I have

28:25

to like do my laundry. But I

28:27

think I immediately disassociated

28:30

from my body, and I don't think I

28:32

stepped back into my body till about twenty

28:34

twenty.

28:35

Well, before you step back into your

28:37

body, you do release Milk

28:40

and Honey first on your own

28:42

self publishing. I think Amazon

28:44

platform it was the

28:46

next year at twenty fifteen,

28:49

is that right? Yes, it gets republished.

28:52

My publishers Andrew's mcmeehal They're

28:55

amazing and they I

28:57

was so scared when a publisher approached me because

28:59

I was like, they're gonna tell me to take

29:01

this out and change this and do that, and they were like,

29:04

no, we just want this.

29:05

Was there a particular piece in here

29:07

that you thought, I don't know if

29:10

they're going to let me publish this?

29:11

Definitely?

29:12

Which one I think, like a lot of

29:14

the maybe is the sexual assault pieces. I

29:17

think the first chapter, so this one

29:19

is for Milk and Honey Our

29:21

knees pride open by cousins

29:24

and uncles, and men are

29:26

bodies touched by all the

29:29

wrong people that even

29:31

in a bed full of safety, we

29:33

are afraid.

29:35

So it's a lot of pieces like that. I

29:38

think I was.

29:38

Very unapologetic in the way

29:40

that I wrote about sexual abuse, and I wasn't trying

29:43

to hide it, And that only came from the fact

29:45

that I didn't think that it was going to become a book

29:47

and sell like over eight million copies.

29:50

Yeah, I thought I was writing it for me and my

29:52

like ten friends.

29:53

In the end, it

29:56

was not the end you wrote the book at eighteen,

29:59

nineteen and twenty, this book becomes

30:02

massively popular. As you just said,

30:05

you thought it was only going to be for you.

30:07

Yeah, I'm judging

30:11

anxiety. I can feel the anxiety. I'm inheriting

30:13

it right now.

30:13

Still not like I don't know, I think it's

30:15

really fucked up. I think it's sold

30:18

up, just like how the personal

30:21

becomes so big, Like

30:23

it went from being back at college

30:25

and I'm like writing, writing, writing,

30:28

all the girls are getting ready for the club and putting on my Misscara

30:30

and editing at the same time, and

30:33

multitasking always, and it

30:36

was definitely very easy for me to write about

30:38

certain things when I didn't think

30:40

that the number of people who are reading them

30:42

now were going to read them. I

30:45

cannot write about my experiences

30:47

with sexual abuse in

30:50

the ways that I used

30:52

to write them in that first book. I couldn't write about them

30:54

like that.

30:55

Now. Why is that?

30:56

Because I know that there's millions of people watching,

30:59

and that is like, I

31:03

don't want to feel naked.

31:05

Yeah, But isn't the reason

31:09

people like you so much just because,

31:12

yeah, you are naked

31:14

on the phone?

31:14

Yeah, And I love doing it for them,

31:17

Like when I am on stage and I'm connecting

31:20

with them, I'm like, fuck,

31:22

I'm gonna do this for the rest of my life. But

31:24

then when it's the other people who

31:27

perhaps don't like you very much and

31:29

they take something that's like your lived experience

31:32

and then they rape you to shreds for it, I think that's

31:34

very hard. That's when I'm like, oh

31:37

my god, do I regret doing this or

31:39

do I not? I think people

31:41

just forget that these are real life

31:44

experiences. I don't want

31:46

to keep having to defend them.

31:48

There's of course plenty

31:51

of as you're talking about negative

31:54

press that has been written and

31:58

I as you know, because you listen to

32:01

the show, and I

32:03

read everything before these, So

32:05

I just had a couple days of reading

32:08

every horrible thing I could

32:10

find, and it's unnerving.

32:15

Yeah. Ew

32:20

Sometimes I'm just like, I wasn't built for this. I

32:23

just want to go home and write. But

32:26

it's it is what it is. It's like what

32:29

I signed up for. I guess, Yeah,

32:34

I think it's fine.

32:37

I'm also tired of lying and saying I don't care anymore,

32:40

because the more I say I don't care, the more obvious

32:42

is obvious it is that I do

32:44

care.

32:46

You know. It's it's okay to say that it's

32:48

not fine. Yeah, at least

32:50

on this show.

32:51

Okay.

32:53

Yeah, when you say you're not

32:55

build for this, I

32:58

can see it's like it's

33:00

like eating at you.

33:01

Yeah.

33:03

I think that writing

33:05

something that I truly loved

33:08

any become

33:11

the person I am today. Like as I was writing

33:13

Milk and Honey, I was I went from girl to

33:15

woman through that book. Then writing

33:17

became a very scary and triggering

33:20

thing. Like I couldn't walk into

33:22

bookstores. I didn't want

33:24

to hear the word poetry. I didn't

33:26

even want to hear the word book like people would

33:28

say that, and my entire body would just like

33:31

because it was so many things like

33:33

when when is the next one coming? And

33:35

like how do I recreate

33:37

the success of the first one? Again, like

33:40

that ate at me and just made me so

33:42

sick. People expect you to do that.

33:44

Two months I was given

33:47

to write the second book, and of course I did not meet

33:49

that deadline. But then all of a sudden,

33:51

everyone's like, well, you know, if you don't

33:53

hurry up, if you take a break, you're

33:56

just here today, gone tomorrow. And

33:59

then this ambitious part of me who

34:01

did the self publishing, who did all that, I

34:03

was like, wait a minute, but I like did work

34:05

really hard, and I don't want to be here

34:07

today, gone tomorrow, so I gotta go, I gotta

34:09

go, I gotta go keep doing it.

34:11

It's like a very hard balance

34:14

and homebody. The third one is

34:17

about me trying to actually

34:19

be like, let me write the book that I need to write,

34:21

because The Sun in or Flowers was

34:24

the book that I thought the world wanted me to write.

34:26

So after pouring yourself onto

34:29

the pages of Milk and Honey, this thing

34:31

of writing that you love that you

34:33

fell in love with that was your sort

34:36

of vessel to communicate all the complex

34:38

emotions you couldn't quite in

34:41

your childhood. As we've talked about, it

34:43

got corrupted to the

34:45

point where the word poetry

34:49

you had a physical response to that.

34:51

Oh yeah, it would make me sick.

34:53

When I was writing that second book,

34:56

I couldn't like digest food. My

34:58

whole nervous system physically

35:01

broken. I could not get up for weeks,

35:04

Like the migraines were so bad

35:06

for such long periods of time that I

35:08

was like, maybe I do need to go to a hospital.

35:11

That was me trying to keep pushing it all

35:13

down just so I can make the deadline.

35:16

Do it, do it, do it, do it, And like.

35:17

A part of me is like, I am glad

35:20

that I did it, because I do think if that deadline

35:22

wasn't there, perhaps I would have never done it, because

35:25

it's very difficult to

35:28

do the second thing.

35:29

And nobody told me that.

35:31

Like the people that I grew up with are all

35:33

like factory workers and people

35:36

who work labor jobs, and like the

35:38

fanciest person I knew was an aunt who

35:40

like went from working on

35:42

the production line to becoming a manager on the floor.

35:45

Nobody in my community

35:47

could guide me or like support

35:49

me or tell me, you know, and so it

35:51

was kind of like figuring it out alone.

35:55

How the hell do you do that.

35:56

I feel like I got

35:59

very lucky with my friends. They

36:02

saved and carried me through, like those worst

36:04

moments when I was so depressed and I couldn't

36:06

leave my bed for weeks. My friend

36:08

Rock we actually met two months

36:11

before that Milk and Honey was self published,

36:13

and she went on, now she's my manager,

36:15

my business partner, and she would

36:18

come over, sit at my bed

36:21

and we'd work, and then there

36:23

would be periods where I couldn't drive. We

36:26

had an office at the time, and she would come pick

36:28

me up at six am and drive me to work and then

36:30

drive me home and drive me to work and drive me

36:32

home. And I think that I

36:34

didn't realize also, like shit, now I'm

36:36

doing my MBA, Like I went from being an

36:39

author who writes by herself to now

36:41

having a team of nine people, and

36:43

I'm like, fuck, there's all these skills that I need

36:46

to do to like manage all of these things. And I

36:48

was only like twenty three, so it's

36:50

been just so much learning.

36:54

And those women, really

36:56

I had a solid team. I'd have a solid team,

36:59

and I think that's the only reason I'm here. I

37:01

wouldn't have made it.

37:06

After the break, Ruby and I discussed

37:08

being a young person in their twenties making

37:11

mistakes very publicly for

37:14

all the world to see. That's

37:16

all coming up next with my guest

37:19

Ruby Kor. You

37:39

said in some interview that the

37:41

strangest thing about all of this

37:44

is that in your twenties,

37:47

and perhaps through all of life, but especially in

37:50

your twenties, we make mistakes.

37:53

Most of us have the good

37:56

fortune of making those mistakes in

37:59

private. Of course, we're all online

38:01

and there's some documentation, there's

38:03

some hyper visibility for everyone

38:05

now, but you, especially were

38:09

to make these mistakes in public. How

38:12

do you make those mistakes in public and

38:14

still continue onward? How do you

38:16

allow yourself to still fuck up in the way

38:18

that we all have to?

38:21

I mean, you're not.

38:22

I don't allow myself to fuck up. I

38:25

like punish myself, and if

38:27

I fuck up, it's like, wait, what did

38:29

we just do? And then I have to forgive myself

38:32

for fucking up. So I'm not allowing it because

38:34

I feel like I can't afford

38:36

to fuck up. If I fuck up,

38:39

then it sort of feels like it's done.

38:42

I won't get another chance. You know

38:44

how many brown women are even so visible,

38:46

and how many of them get second chances. But

38:50

you eventually just have to let

38:52

it hurt and then two weeks later stop

38:54

crying about it and pick up. But that

38:56

scar is always there, cut

38:59

into your skin, and you sort of keep a tally

39:01

of it.

39:02

Is there a piece in this

39:04

one or that one that's

39:06

that's hitting on that?

39:08

I think this one, Homebody, the one

39:10

under the.

39:13

Giving you your books, is I'm

39:15

back and help it.

39:17

Let me see? Should I read

39:19

it?

39:19

Let's let's do it.

39:20

This is from It's kind of arrogant, though you.

39:23

Know what we're gonna be. Okay, okay,

39:26

this is a rupee reading

39:29

from Homebody from twenty

39:31

twenty.

39:32

I paid in blood to be here. I

39:35

paid with a childhood littered with

39:37

bigger monsters than you. I've

39:40

been beaten into a silence more

39:42

times than I've been embraced on

39:44

this earth. You haven't seen

39:47

what I've seen. My rock bottom

39:49

went so deep I'm pretty sure it was

39:51

hell. I spent a decade

39:54

climbing out of it. My hands

39:56

blistered, my feet,

39:58

swelled. My mind said

40:01

I can't take it anymore. I

40:04

told my mind, you better get

40:06

yourself together. We came

40:08

here for Joe, and we are

40:10

gonna feel all of it. I've

40:13

been hunted, killed,

40:15

and walked back to Earth. I

40:18

snapped the neck off every beast

40:20

that thought it could. And you want to take

40:22

my seat, the one I

40:24

built with the story of my life, Honey,

40:28

you won't fit. I juggle

40:30

clowns like you. I pick

40:33

my teeth with fools like you for

40:35

fun. I've played and

40:38

slept and danced with bigger

40:40

devils.

40:42

I was essentially a kind

40:44

of spoken word distrack.

40:46

Definitely, that was that's the dis

40:48

track, because I usually don't respond to the hate,

40:50

but I was like, fuck it, I'm allowed.

40:52

To in my own book.

40:53

That's the response.

40:53

That's the response.

40:54

Is that the response to all the parodying

40:58

that has happened to those people who

41:00

do that.

41:00

For sure. You know what helps me

41:03

is like, I go back to my roots. That's

41:06

why I'm sitting here healthy today. I think

41:08

my community and what we've been

41:11

through over the past five hundred

41:13

years, what we have seen, what

41:15

we have injured, was so much bigger

41:18

than this, and so I think about the

41:20

people who lost their lives so that I could

41:22

be here today. And that's the emotions

41:24

I channeled while writing that piece. That

41:27

is what I go back to and I pull myself

41:30

together.

41:30

And you're part of this larger legacy

41:33

that made the work you're doing possible.

41:36

Yes, I want to pinpoint someone

41:39

in particular, which is your mother. You

41:42

have this piece called Broken English

41:44

that I want to sit with to do

41:46

that. Can you tell the story

41:48

of how when you were growing up

41:51

you felt some sense of shame

41:54

around her?

41:55

Yeah, when you're growing up in

41:57

your minority, all you want to do is

42:00

look like the majority. And

42:02

I just was like, why can't my parents get it

42:04

together and do that? Like, Mom, why

42:06

do you have to wear that? Obviously?

42:09

When we go to the grocery store, just

42:11

look like a normal person. Stop yelling

42:13

out in Bundubbi while I'm in like an aisle ten

42:16

looking at candy. Do you see anybody

42:18

else, any of the nice white lady screaming?

42:20

You know you didn't see my mom

42:24

right now? Grocery

42:26

store. So horrible event,

42:29

traumatizing, so dramatic. She yelled

42:31

at me in English, to be fair, but it was yelling,

42:34

just drag they put you in the cart.

42:37

You get punished in one of those carts.

42:39

It's not fun. And then it was like I don't want

42:42

to eat this food and like

42:44

that whole thing, and that's a normal experience,

42:47

you know, when you're like an immigrant kid, the

42:49

food from from back, pndube

42:51

food and you know, we

42:53

spend so much time being ashamed.

42:56

I was like, oh, we never really had

42:58

the nicest things. And

43:00

I was like, can you drop me four blocks

43:02

away from school? I don't want people to see the car

43:05

we're driving me? And

43:07

then I hit like twenty one and

43:10

then I grew up a little bit. I was like, I'm

43:13

such an asshole. Why am I

43:15

like such a self hater? The fact

43:17

that they did all of those things

43:19

like deserves an award and I'm here.

43:22

I used to be ashamed of all of that. And

43:25

that's where broken English sort

43:27

of came from, because especially

43:29

the Indian accent is so mocked and

43:32

it's like the butt of all jokes. And

43:34

I was like, wait a minute, it's

43:36

like the last thing that my mom has

43:38

left of where she came from. That

43:41

poem. I was asked to write it

43:43

for an event for Binjabi mothers and

43:46

I wrote it over a couple of days and thought, you

43:48

know, performing at once and gone tomorrow.

43:51

But that is the piece that

43:53

everywhere I go like, it will never leave

43:56

me. That's the one they want to hear. And

43:58

what's so beautiful and cool

44:01

is like it doesn't matter who's in the audience

44:03

and what they look like, what color their skin

44:06

is. Everybody feels it

44:08

in a different type of that feels like

44:10

they connect to it.

44:11

Shall we do it? Yeah?

44:14

Broken English? I

44:16

think about the way my father pulled the

44:18

family out of poverty without

44:21

knowing what a vowel was, and

44:24

my mother raised four children

44:27

without being able to construct

44:29

a perfect sentence in

44:31

English. A discombobulated

44:34

couple who landed in the New

44:37

world with hopes that left the bitter

44:39

taste of rejection in their

44:41

mouths. No family,

44:44

no friends, just man

44:46

and wife, two university

44:49

degrees that meant nothing, one

44:52

mother tongue that was broken now,

44:55

one swollen belly with a baby

44:57

inside, and a father

44:59

worrying about jobs and rent

45:02

because no matter what, this

45:05

baby was coming. And

45:08

they thought to themselves for a split

45:11

second, was it worth it

45:13

to put all of our money into the

45:16

dream of a country that's swallowing

45:18

us whole. And Papa

45:20

looks at his woman's eyes

45:22

and sees loneliness

45:25

living where the iris was. He

45:28

wants to give her a home in a country

45:30

that looks at her with the word visitor

45:33

wrapped around their tongue.

45:36

On their wedding day, she left an

45:38

entire village to be his wife.

45:41

And now she left an entire country

45:44

to be a warrior. And

45:46

when the winter came, they had

45:48

absolutely nothing to keep

45:50

the coldness out, and like

45:53

two brackets, they faced one another

45:56

to hold the dearest parts of

45:58

them, their children close.

46:02

They turned a suitcase full of

46:04

clothes into a life and

46:06

regular paychecks to

46:08

make sure that the children of immigrants

46:11

wouldn't hate them for being the

46:13

children of immigrants. They

46:16

worked too hard, you

46:18

can tell by their hands. Their eyes

46:21

were begging for sleep,

46:23

and our mouths were begging to

46:26

be fed. And that is

46:28

the most artistic thing I have

46:30

ever seen. It is poetry

46:33

to these ears that have never heard

46:35

what passion sounds like. And

46:38

my mouth is full of likes

46:40

and ums when I look at their masterpiece.

46:43

Because there are no words

46:45

in the English language that can articulate

46:49

that kind of beauty. I can't

46:51

compact their existence into twenty

46:54

six letters and call it

46:56

a description. I tried

46:59

once, but the adjectives

47:01

needed to describe them don't even

47:03

exist, so instead

47:06

I ended up with pages and

47:08

pages and pages full

47:10

of words, followed

47:13

with commas and more words and more

47:15

commas, only to realize

47:17

that there are some things in

47:19

the world so infinite

47:23

they could never use a full stop.

47:26

So how dare you mock your

47:29

mother? When she opens her

47:31

mouth and broken English

47:33

spills out. Don't be

47:35

ashamed of the fact that she split

47:38

through countries to be here

47:41

so you wouldn't have to cross the shoreline.

47:45

Her accent is thick

47:47

like honey. Hold it with

47:49

your life. It's the only

47:51

thing she has left from home. Don't

47:54

you stomp on that richness?

47:57

Instead hang it up on

47:59

the walls of museums next to Dolly

48:01

and Van Go. Her

48:03

life is brilliant and

48:06

tragic. Kiss the side

48:08

of her.

48:08

Tent, her cheek.

48:10

She already knows what it sounds like

48:12

to have an entire nation laugh

48:15

when she speaks. She

48:18

is more than our punctuation and language.

48:22

We might be able to paint pictures

48:24

and write stories, but

48:26

she made an entire world

48:28

for herself.

48:30

So how is that for art?

48:34

I remember that day, like I walked into

48:37

the kitchen. I think her and my dad must

48:39

have gotten into a fight because she

48:41

was cooking, and she was like,

48:44

I'm just so stupid. Well she's saying

48:46

it in bundubby. She's like, I don't even know

48:48

anything. I haven't done anything.

48:51

I've just been in this house all of these years,

48:54

and I'm like, I've not

48:56

accomplished a single thing. And

48:59

it just broke my heart. And I remember just

49:01

crumpling to the floor and I was

49:03

like, how dare

49:06

you say you're stupid?

49:08

Like everything I do, I'm

49:11

capable of doing it because of you?

49:13

Are you?

49:13

What are you saying?

49:14

Woman? You gave us your whole life?

49:17

And I feel like I try.

49:19

I have a whole piece about

49:22

that. How do I make you believe

49:24

that you are so much more than

49:26

what you think you are?

49:27

Does she believe you?

49:29

I think so. Like I said, that display

49:31

of emotion was very rare for my mom. That

49:34

was many, many years ago. I

49:36

have not seen it since. But

49:39

when my mom cries, because it's very

49:41

rare, everybody in

49:43

the house except for my dad because

49:46

he does not know what to do when anyone's

49:48

crying. All the kids were.

49:51

Like, what did you do to

49:53

our mother?

49:54

And everyone loses their shit.

49:56

Oh, the whole house will start.

49:57

All of us start crying because like mom can't

49:59

cry, Like mom cannot cry. So

50:02

it was very, very, very different, And I

50:04

think that she believes it. You know

50:06

what, when she comes to my shows, and she comes

50:08

to a lot of them, it's so sweet

50:11

because I feel like she becomes this sixteen year old

50:13

girl because she gets so much love and

50:15

attention and she gets to be that sixteen

50:17

year old girl that she never got to be, and

50:20

they'll ask her for her autograph in the books.

50:23

And I think my whole family,

50:25

at least me and my parents have had this, Like

50:27

there's been somewhat of a healing for the parents

50:30

through that, Like when a child of working

50:32

class immigrant parents says that

50:34

my parents literally sacrificed everything,

50:37

Like the first time we went to dinner out

50:39

as a family at a restaurant was

50:41

like after I started making book money,

50:44

Like they did absolutely nothing. Our

50:46

first vacation was in twenty seventeen. And

50:49

so this whole thing that's happened with me,

50:51

it's really been big for my parents

50:53

and my family because I'm like I

50:55

can give you, guys, what I think

50:57

that you deserve, which is comfort.

50:59

So when she sees you on stage now, perhaps

51:02

on this global tour

51:04

you're about to do, do you

51:06

think that she's able to say to herself,

51:09

I've done something, I hope.

51:11

So I always try to tell her.

51:13

I'm like, I can only do

51:15

this because of you. You

51:18

gave me the strength and you raise me.

51:21

You know, you gave up the ability to do so

51:23

much so that I could have this. But

51:26

to be honest, she's not that excited about tour. She's

51:28

like, I don't like this idea that you have

51:30

to leave again. Can you just

51:32

like not find a regular job. That's my

51:34

mom's biggest complaint is that I just

51:37

didn't become a teacher where I could get

51:39

my summers off. And she's like, I don't understand

51:41

why you need to work so hard. And

51:43

my dad is like, good job. But

51:46

she's not really about it. She's always

51:48

she's still actually in denial. She's like, oh

51:50

yeah, like you're gonna get off the train right, Like when's

51:53

the next stop? And I'm like, mom, like this is my

51:55

life now, Like there's no stopping.

51:57

Well, so you're still on this train.

51:59

The train did stop during COVID.

52:01

The train stopped during COVID, But outside of that, it

52:03

continues onward.

52:04

It continues onward. But I feel like I'm

52:06

the conductor.

52:07

Now, That's what I'm I want to

52:09

ask you about it. You're twenty nine, you'll

52:11

be thirty this year.

52:13

I yeah, I don't know if

52:15

you feel this way, but I

52:17

just don't know where my twenties went.

52:20

I was.

52:20

I remember being twenty one and publishing that first

52:22

book and then everything in between that. I don't know what

52:25

the hell happened. And yes, I'm turning thirty this year.

52:27

I do feel that way. The pandemic didn't

52:29

help. You've said before

52:31

that Milk and Honey, Sun and Her

52:33

Flowers it's for the

52:36

seventeen year old brown woman

52:38

in Brampton who is not even thinking

52:41

about the literary space, who's just

52:43

trying to live, survive, get

52:46

through her day. And the

52:48

girl that wrote Milk and Honey

52:51

is not the woman who wrote The

52:54

Sun and Her Flowers and is not

52:56

the person who wrote Homebody.

52:59

So I'm curious how you're thinking about

53:02

the evolution of both you and the

53:04

potential person reading the

53:06

work you're putting into the world.

53:09

The first one, I was just writing, and

53:13

the second one I got

53:15

confused about who I was writing for

53:18

because suddenly I was like, am I writing for these people?

53:20

And then no, I think

53:22

I'm very clear that I've always been writing

53:24

for me. And actually it's

53:27

such a freeing thing to accept

53:30

that. I always just to wonder,

53:32

well, what's this recipe? What was

53:34

the recipe of milk and honey? I need to

53:36

figure out the recipes so I can make the cake again.

53:39

And the recipe was that

53:42

I was just being honest

53:45

with me and only

53:47

writing for me. And there's such

53:49

a freedom in that because then the poetry

53:52

just sort of comes by itself. And

53:55

the thing is when you are honest

53:57

and you dig into the most like vulnerable parts

53:59

of you, that is a feeling that's most

54:02

universal. So as long as I can continue

54:04

to write those things, I think I'll be okay.

54:07

And honestly, after the shit

54:09

storm of the last couple of years, it is very

54:12

clear to me that success and happiness

54:14

are two very different things. And

54:16

after a lot of external

54:19

success, I've realized

54:21

more of that isn't going to fill me

54:24

in any sort of spiritual

54:26

way. And so what

54:28

is that? I always say the thing that makes me the

54:30

happiest in the world is laughing, and

54:33

so that's all I want to do. Surround

54:35

myself with good company

54:37

and people that make me laugh.

54:39

As we leave, could we read

54:41

a piece from Homebody? M hm that

54:43

I think is you kind

54:46

of becoming the conductor that you're talking

54:48

about.

54:50

Okay, we'll do this one in another one.

54:51

Okay, great?

54:53

Today I saw myself for the first

54:55

time when I dusted off

54:57

the mirror of my mind, and the woman

55:00

looking back took my breath away. Who

55:03

was this beautiful beastling, this

55:06

extra celestial earthly

55:10

I touched my face and my reflection

55:13

touched the woman of my dreams, all

55:15

her gorgeous smirking back at me.

55:18

My knees surrendered to the earth

55:21

as I wept and sighed at how I'd

55:23

gone my whole life being

55:26

myself but not seeing

55:28

myself. I spent in

55:30

decades living inside my body,

55:33

never left it once, yet

55:36

managed to miss all its miracles.

55:39

Isn't it funny how you can

55:41

occupy a space without

55:44

being in touch with it. How

55:46

it took so long for me to open the

55:48

eyes of my eyes, embrace

55:51

the heart of my heart, kissed

55:53

the soles of my swollen feet

55:56

and hear them whisper.

55:57

Thank you, thank you, thank

56:00

you for noticing. There's

56:05

one more that I think.

56:06

Is like, is there a tit up for this one?

56:08

No? Okay, I think I should really

56:11

start on the title thing. That would make

56:13

performing them much easier. People

56:16

don't know what I learned from last night, so is

56:18

people never know when I'm done a poem

56:21

and so when to clap, and then when I move on

56:23

to the.

56:23

Next one, you just tell

56:25

me when to clap and I'll do it.

56:27

Our souls will not be soothed

56:29

by what we achieve, how we look,

56:32

or all the hard work we do. Even

56:35

if we manage to make all the money

56:37

in the world, we'd be left feeling

56:40

empty for something. Our

56:42

souls ache for community.

56:46

Our deepest being craves one

56:48

another. We need to be connected

56:51

to feel alive. That's

56:54

the one.

56:55

My final question I guess is you're

56:57

going on this massive tour.

57:00

Your mom's not happy.

57:01

About it, just not happy about it at all.

57:03

Your father's proud. Yeah,

57:06

as you move forward as

57:08

a poet, as a human, going

57:10

on to that stage, what

57:13

do you want to leave behind and what

57:15

do you want to bring with you?

57:16

I'm leaving behind

57:19

that drill sergeant

57:22

in my head.

57:22

That's so unforgiving.

57:24

And I am going

57:27

forward into this tour with the idea

57:29

that it's not that serious. It's

57:32

fine, I'll fuck up,

57:34

it's great. I'm doing this to

57:36

be able to look those folks in the eye

57:39

when they're in the audience that have the most human

57:41

experience. Touring post COVID

57:43

is just different. We talk about some heavy

57:45

shit and there's always tears, and there's

57:47

always laughter, and it's a hole. You experience

57:50

it like all of the human emotion, But

57:53

post COVID, all the emotions are

57:55

very, very heightened in this room, and

57:57

it's just a reminder of what we

57:59

need, which is that connection. So when I'm standing

58:02

up there and I see

58:04

all of them having that

58:07

very visceral experience, I just

58:09

want them to know, as I guess

58:11

I want myself to know that, yeah,

58:13

we're alone, but we're not really all alone.

58:15

All the time you said with

58:17

the first book, I kept thinking, is

58:19

this all a mistake? Am I just

58:21

a one hit wonder? Then the second

58:24

book happened and I realized that I

58:26

can do this a third, fourth,

58:29

and fifth time. I just want

58:31

to give it time. I just want to create

58:33

the best thing going forward. When

58:36

I'm eighty nine years old lying

58:38

in my bed somewhere, I want

58:40

to feel good about what I've done.

58:44

Do you think you're on your way to being

58:46

that eighty nine year old?

58:48

Now, yeah, I do.

58:50

I promise myself, I'm never going to sign another

58:53

book contract. That

58:55

is freed my creativity. I am

58:57

a free woman. They get the book

58:59

when I tell them they're getting the book, and they

59:01

will be happy with the book that they get. That's the

59:04

rule. And it's

59:06

allowed me to become creative

59:09

again. I don't tense up when I

59:11

hear the word poetry, and I'm falling back

59:13

in love with the thing that

59:16

people say they love me for. And

59:18

so it's so funny because it took

59:20

so long to get there. But I mean,

59:22

I already wrote a fourth book, but only

59:24

because I had to free myself from the ability

59:27

to do so, you know, learn to

59:29

get off the train and then like hop

59:31

back on with a nice coffee, get

59:33

off in a couple stuff, smell the flowers and

59:35

then get.

59:36

Back on sort of thing.

59:37

Well, I wish that for you.

59:38

Thank you, I really appreciate it.

59:41

He becore, thank you for the time thank

59:43

you so much, and

1:00:12

that's our show.

1:00:15

If you enjoy today's episode, be sure to leave us.

1:00:17

Five stars on Spotify, Apple, wherever

1:00:20

you do your listening. If you want

1:00:22

to go above and beyond, sharing

1:00:24

this episode on social media, sharing

1:00:26

it with a friend, whatever you do, all of

1:00:28

it really does help new listeners find

1:00:31

the program. I want to give a special thanks

1:00:33

this week to Narrative pr and of

1:00:35

course our guest Rupy Kor to

1:00:38

pre order the tenth anniversary Collector's

1:00:40

edition of Milk and Honey, or to

1:00:42

find any of the works discussed in today's

1:00:44

episode, be sure to visit talk easypod

1:00:48

dot com for more conversations

1:00:50

with other writers. I'd recommend

1:00:52

Ocean Wong, Jimblahary, Margaret

1:00:55

Atwood, Zadi Smith, and

1:00:57

George Saunders. You can find those

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1:01:25

Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our

1:01:28

executive producer is Jennick sa Bravo. Today's

1:01:30

talk was edited by Clarice Gavara, with

1:01:33

assistants from Sean Fitzgerald and

1:01:35

mixed by Andrew Vastola. Our

1:01:37

music is by Dylan Peck. Our illustrations

1:01:40

are by Christia Shenoy. Our photographs

1:01:42

are by Julius Chew, graphics by Ethan

1:01:44

Sineca and of course our team

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at Pushkin Industries. Justin Richmond,

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Kerry Brody, Jacob Smith, Eric Sandler, Keira

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Posey, Jorna McMillan, Tara Machado,

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Sarah Nix, Malcolm Gladwell, Gretacon.

1:01:56

And Jacob Weisberg.

1:01:58

I'm San Fragoso, thank you for listening

1:02:00

to Talk Easy. I'll see you back here next

1:02:02

week with a new episode. Until

1:02:05

then, stay safe and

1:02:07

so on.

1:02:13

Had a fa