Rupi Kaur was born in Punjab, India, on October 4th, 1992. Kaur and her family were raised Sikh, which is a religion that originated in Punjab. Around the 1980’s, the Kaurs were exposed to Anti-Sikh riots which drove them to emigrate to Toronto Canada when Kaur was about three years old. In Toronto, Kaur lived with her mother and her three siblings: Her father had left before she was even born because he was not ready for her birth. Although he was not physically present, Kaur’s father managed to send supplies to her mother because of their poor financial situation. Kaur was surrounded by the fine arts from a young age. Her mother was a painter, and her father regularly wrote poetry to her mother while he was away. She began painting with her mother when she was five years old. Then, she took up reading at age 10 and found it to help with her state of loneliness. 

She began to experience anxiety, self consciousness, and depression after she was sexually abused by two men in her family. These events caused her body to always be prepared for disasters and she could never truly feel safe. She was taught to be silent by the men in her life. They told her that women who spoke of their opinions were not found attractive by society. The sexual abuse caused Kaur to feel unworthy: Kaur became mute, which is a form of society anxiety when one cannot speak in certain situations because of trauma. As a result of Kaur becoming mute, her father pushed her to participate in speech during middle school. Performing in front of others helped her work through her social anxiety, but she became embarrassed of her accent and was bullied at school. She finally began exploring poetry in high school because it was a form of expressing herself and coping with her mental health.

At the University of Waterloo, Kaur studied rhetoric and professional writing. She also began writing her own poetry while she was in college and self-publishing them. Her professors had told her that she should not be self-publishing because it is looked down upon by literary peers. She did not let these comments stop her and she continued to express her love for poetry.

Other than poetry helping her cope with her mental health, she wrote poetry to tell her story, and others. Most of Kaur’s poems are self reflections and anecdotes from her experiences, but some are based from stories she has heard from her peers. Kaur stated in multiple interviews that she believes her struggles and childhood has made her who she is today, and without those experiences, she may have not begun writing poetry. 

In 2012, Kaur began posting her poems to Tumblr and Instagram, both social media platforms. She became very popular because of her distinct style of not using, “normal punctuation.” Her mother tongue, Sikh, does not use punctuation. Every letter is treated the same, so there are no uppercase or lowercase letters. Kaur chose to use this style of writing because she wanted to preserve this detail of her upbringing. In addition to her writing style, readers felt understood and loved her poetry because she spoke of trauma, abuse, feminism, and self love, even though most writers avoided these controversial topics. 

Kaur published her first book, milk and honey, in 2014. She originally submitted her book to various publishers, but none of them accepted her work. Kaur decided to take her career into her own hands and published Milk and Honey through Createspace, a self-publishing company. She then continued publishing after writing the sun and her flowers (2017), which sold over a million copies in 2020.  Kaur struggled with writer’s block, depression, anxiety, and migraines which made the sun and her flowers one of Kaur’s, “greatest challenges of my(Kaur’s) life.” Then in 2020, Kaur published home body, which was one of the best-selling books at the time. Kaur’s most recent work, healing through words, was published in 2022. This book is different from her other books because healing through words is a guided journal with the intent to help others reflect on their life.

From writing about sexual assault and childhood trauma, to self love and the process of recovery, Kaur’s poetry teaches readers about the journey of healing- the good and the bad. Kaur isn’t afraid to shed light on social issues and taboos about being a woman in today's world. She wants her readers to feel understood and she never, “sugar coats,” her poetry. On Instagram, Kaur made a post that had the image of her laying on her bed with a period blood stain. Instagram then censored her post because it “broke community guidelines.” Kaur is trying to change the world one poem at a time by challenging stereotypes and social norms.