Write Poetry with Jasmin Kaur

Write along with Jasmin’s playlist!

Prompt #1: I Am Free When…

Write whatever comes to your brain, in prose or poetry, like a stream of consciousness. 

Try to incorporate metaphor & simile, as well as these words:

Water

Roots

Replenish

Bloom

Prompt #2: Writing For The World

Pick one line from your self-reflection and write an entirely new poem/prose that you would want to share with the world.

Q&A with Jasmin Kaur

Are you related to Rupi Kaur?

So, no, I am not. And it’s interesting because I get this question a lot and actually all Sikh women, sorry, most, Sikh women choose to take on the last name Kaur because it’s a way of challenging the castes and kind of classit kind of meanings and past history of South Asian last names. So in typical or in historical South Asian last names, there is a social class denoted within that title. And those social classes have caused harm to people for centuries and centuries, and have caused some people to be treated as less than and some people to be treated as better than others. So by taking on the last name Kaur, we kind of all collectively choose to say that we are going to live as equals. And I think it’s such a beautiful but, like, not so often understood aspect of Sikh identity, because actually, I get this question a lot.

What was the hardest part of publishing your books?

So with my first book, When You Ask Me Where I’m Going, what was nice about writing that book was that I had been collecting poems that I wanted to put into a book for years. So, like, there are poems in that book that I wrote like seven to eight years ago. And then there were some that I wrote, you know, two years ago, and it was this slow kind of build-up and collecting of things. Whereas for my next book, If I Tell You The Truth, I was starting from scratch. There was nothing on the page. Well, there was one chapter, but generally, there was not a lot there to go with. So I had a timeline, I had a deadline, and I had a goal in mind for how many words I wanted to write a day. And I had to just kind of treat it less as, like, waiting for inspiration to come along and hit me over the head and more as a dedicated, goal-oriented commitment where I was getting up at night, in the morning, sitting down at my desk writing whether I felt inspired or not inspired to meet those daily word goals. And I actually found that having or developing that kind of discipline of just, like, deciding that you’re going to sit down and write a book and committing to it day in and day out, it was really, really emotionally taxing at times, but it was also really helpful in that sometimes I needed a word goal to be able to push myself out of my writer’s block. In the sense that I often feel stuck when I am waiting for inspiration versus like if I sit there and tell myself that I’ve gotta write, inspiration kind of just happens. It’s this, like, beautiful, magical thing. So it was challenging to write like that, but it was necessary and also, like, such a beautiful learning experience. And it was all of that combined into one! So I think that’s the biggest challenge. I think just forcing yourself to do the work day in and day out and come back to your desk when you’re not having a great day sometimes, but know that the end result of you kind of like pushing yourself out of that comfort zone is this beautiful thing that you get to hold in your hands and that can transport people to another world and bring, like, joy and strength and, like, comfort to people. It’s the most beautiful thing. It’s the most challenging thing. But I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

How do you build characters? It’s really hard for me to create them, especially as a prose writer.

Yeah. So, poetry for me feels like my first language. Fiction writing came after poetry. So I feel the most intuitive when I’m writing poems. So for me, because poetry has always been closest to my heart, I tend to write poems from the voices of my characters before I even begin writing the story. Which sounds, like, weird, because the poems actually don’t go anywhere. They don’t really end up in the books sometimes. It’s just more of a writing exercise for myself, and I like to write poems from the perspective of my characters because I find that in poetry I’m able to tap right into my emotions, cut straight to the root of what I’m feeling or thinking, and to know a character that intimately, to be able to write a poem from their heart, I think it helps you to kind of situate them mentally and then situate them in their environment. The other thing I find really helpful is just, like, worksheets. So, you could find these online usually that just help you answer questions about your character. So, I’ve seen worksheets that’ll say things like, “If your character was having a really bad day, where would they go?” “If your character could only hang out with one person for the rest of their life, who that person be?” And it forces you to kind of think about things you would never typically think about when you’re writing a scene or when you’re writing something specific. It forces you to kind of expand who they are into like a whole holistic person who is complicated and just as human as a living, breathing person. And I think once you’ve got that holistic perspective on like who they are as people, then it becomes easier and more intuitive to put them into situations, to put them into different settings in your story and know how they would react.

Have you ever found writing to be a spiritual experience?

I think so. I think that writing feels like it helps me get right into who I am. Deep down, I think that is the most beautiful spiritual thing for me, just tapping into who I am and I’ve gotten closest to who I am through art, through poetry, through music, and especially, like, through writing and especially through journaling. I think that when we journal, we’re able to kind of have conversations with ourselves that we don’t always get to have on a day-to-day basis when we’re so caught up in everything around us externally, when we’re caught up in school and our family and interpersonal, conflicts and all these kinds of things that just, like, happen, we kind of get disconnected from ourselves. So I think writing helps me come back inside when I’ve been outside for a very long time, if that makes sense.

Do you have any advice for incoming authors and any advice for starting to write books after graduating high school? 

So, the first thing I want to say is: know that your voice matters. Know that your voice is important and it needs to be heard in this world. Often times when I doubt myself, when I question, you know, whether writing is really for me, I ask myself whether the world would be a better place if my voice was just absent from it. And the answer to that is no. The world would not be a better place. And that simple answer, that act of telling myself no is what keeps me going sometimes, it keeps me motivated. And I think that when I was in my undergrad, when I was studying English in university, I didn’t— I loved writing, I love storytelling, I love poetry. But I didn’t necessarily think that my love for poetry and writing and fiction would translate into a book one day. I just didn’t think that that was a realistic dream. It felt like ending up in the NBA. Like it just felt too disconnected. And I was like, it’s a cool concept, but it’s never going to happen. And if I could go back in time and talk to myself back in the day, I would say, believe in yourself enough to know that, that if you want this badly enough, it is going to happen. And carry yourself now as if that’s where you’re going, because it’s only going to strengthen you when that day comes, because that day will come because, you know, you’re sitting here and you want this that badly and this means that much to you, that would be a message to myself. And I think that that would also be my message to other young authors. To know the value of your voice, to not let the world shake that inherent trust that you have in yourself as a storyteller. The other thing I often say is that authors, writers, poets need to be armed with both deep-rooted humility and ridiculous confidence, because you need to have the humility to know that you know you’re going to be growing, your writing next year is going to be different than what it is today. And in three years it’s going to be stronger and five years, it’s going to be even stronger. But that doesn’t mean that your writing right now isn’t good enough, and it doesn’t mean that you should stop writing because you’re not there right now. On the flip side as well, you need to be armed with so much confidence that when you get those critiques that come from a place of love, but also come from a place of wanting to strengthen your work, it fortifies you as a writer and doesn’t make you feel like the task is too big. You need to just arm yourself with that ridiculous confidence that you can get to get to the edit and celebrate your work all through the process. It’s a challenge, and I say that knowing that I struggle with it.  As a published author with two books, I still struggle with those things. But I tell myself that all the time as I have those doubts.

What apps to use to make your Instagram posts?

So, I actually have been designing my Instagram posts on my laptop since forever. I use Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. When I do a drawing on Instagram that accompanies my poems, I will draw it on Adobe Illustrator on my laptop and then I’ll save it and then email it to myself, and then post on Instagram. So it’s a bit of a process.

What books or authors inspire you?

I’ve got, like, a stack of books in front of me, which I want to share with you guys, because I think some of you will really love these. So I’ve Got Blood & Honey in front of me by Shelby Mahurin. And this is the sequel to Serpent & Dove, and it’s a fantasy romance novel about a witch who falls in love with a witch hunter. And I read the first book last year, and I was just obsessed with it. And I had to pick up the second book. And the covers are so pretty, it’s hard not to want to just, like, grab that book. So that’s one of my favorites. I’ve also got The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. This is another fiction fantasy novel, and it’s historical fiction about a girl who becomes immortal, but the trade-off for being immortal is that no one remembers her. So it’s from her perspective. And the writing is really, like, lyrical and poetic. So if you’re interested in seeing, like, how metaphors can be used in fiction, this is a really good book to read. And I’ve also got a copy of a book that’s not been published yet. It’s coming out in April. I’m so excited that I have an arc. This is Witches Steeped in Gold by Ciannon Smart, about two warring witches, and was inspired by Ciannon’s Jamaican culture. Beautiful writing. So if you’re into like witchy YA teen novels, like, this is the one. It’s really, really good. So these are the authors that inspire me. And I think that if you want to be an awesome writer, reading is, like, fundamental reading, is a part of that process. So I’m always trying to pick up books as I’m writing, just to just to stay inspired by what is possible for a story.

Do you have any advice on how to truly write for yourself without the pressure of a hypothetical audience?

I think that’s a work in progress for myself. I think sometimes just really sitting there and saying, okay, with this piece of writing that I’m writing, no one is going to see it. I don’t have to stress about anyone seeing it. That in itself, just telling yourself that and sticking to it, can be what you need to do. Knowing that it’s okay to, like, make a mess. Be silly. Just write things that might, you know, that you might not be into the next day once you read it back, knowing that there is no—there’s nothing bad that’s going to happen if you write something that you hate. It’s such an important thing and it’s a process. It’s like building a muscle the same way that writing is building a muscle. Building that comfort in writing vulnerably is also a muscle that you need to keep working on. It comes with time and patience. So be patient with yourself. Trust the process. Because it’ll come slowly sometimes.

As an immigrant, my grammar is poor at times, and that stops me from writing most of the time. As a first-timer here today, this really gives me a little bit more confidence.

Thank you. I’m so glad to hear that. And I think that that is such a real struggle. And we, you know, we live in a world sometimes that tells us that, you know, a colonizer’s language is the most important language. And fluency in that language is supposedly important. And I challenge that. I confront that and I reject it. And I so appreciate that you shared that thought with us.

I’m currently in a reading rut. Any advice?

My thought on a reading rut is the same as a writing rut. You kind of just have to sit down and commit to something, whether you’re committing to, like, writing 100 words a day or you’re committing to reading one chapter of your book, or reading one page of your book, it’s that commitment sometimes that forces us out of that pause moment. And also knowing that it’s okay to have ruts sometimes, like, it’s okay to just step away and not need to or want to read anything, and just want to write instead or just want to draw instead or just want to like, you know, binge-watch your favorite movies.

Have you been able to train or quiet your inner critic?

Still very much a work in progress. And I also want to say, like, I am in a master’s program right now filled with authors, filled with poets, filled with creative writers. And my professor, one of my professors in the master’s program, had a whole conversation with all of us, as writers, about how we need to be kinder to ourselves, and we need to work with our inner critic and not work against it sometimes. So I want to just reaffirm that, like, all of us struggle with this. It’s definitely not something that happens in isolation. I think it’s, like, a universal thing as authors and as writers, where we are sometimes our own worst critics. So don’t feel alone. That’s definitely, like, a universal—even your favoritest author in the whole world that’s probably had those exact same thoughts and questions themselves in the exact same way.

Do you think that the characters and stories we tell reveal the deepest parts of ourselves? How do you deal with that less obvious vulnerability?

Yeah, I think I’ve heard this thing that like the first novel that we often write has ourselves in it somewhere, even if it’s fiction. Like, one of the characters usually sounds a lot like us, and we need to get that bit of ourselves out in order to go on to the next book, where the character really isn’t us. So I think that fiction can be a beautiful way to process our own feelings, and the most beautiful fiction comes from our own experiences. It comes from tapping into those bits of ourselves that we don’t always get to tap into in our day-to-day lives. And it’s when we’re writing from that place, that place of honesty and sincerity and what is familiar to us, that folks are like, “Okay, I get this. This speaks to me. This speaks to my heart. This is relatable.” And so it’s funny how that happens.

What first inspired you to write?

So, in high school, before I discovered spoken word poetry online, I picked up a book, a poetry book by the Sufi poet Rumi. And Rumi is a poet who lived hundreds upon hundreds of years ago. And his work, ah, their work, is still translated to this day and still in print to this day. And I was so struck by the fact that I was reading these poems by this person who is hundreds of years old, but I could still relate so personally as if we were just having a conversation today. And that’s where it came from. I was just, like, mesmerized and in awe of the fact that someone could write something in so few words, and touch my heart in such a meaningful way, and I was like, “Whatever this is, I need to tap into it as well, because I’m feeling resonance here that I’ve never felt before.”

A lot of times I find it easier to talk about the stuff that’s hard about being a woman of color and just the obstacles in my life. But I also don’t want that to be all that my story is, because there’s so much more than that. And so, how do you manage that with how you’re writing?

That totally makes sense. And I experienced a lot of that as a young poet. I think, in the first three or four years of my poetry, it was the hardest stuff I’d been through. That was what was coming out in my writing. It was a lot of those angry experiences and those things that took me to sadness. And I truly feel like I needed to get that out of my system. I needed to share all of that as it was, without apology, so that I could get to the brighter stuff, because it was a cathartic experience for me and it was a healing experience for me to just be able to bring words to things that were, for so long, unspoken and very confusing. So I would say, let yourself be okay with that process and also appreciate your self-awareness of that, because your story is all of it and not just one segment. So giving yourself license and giving yourself a bit of, like, that love to know that all the elements of your story are relevant and important and valuable and deserve to be heard. I think that’s the key. 

Do you recommend self-publishing or traditional publishing?

So, I actually can’t speak to self-publishing because I didn’t self-publish. So I don’t know too much about that personally. What I do really like about the traditional publishing process is that when you’re publishing with an established publishing house, they help you with printing the book, editing the book, marketing the book, sending the book out to bookstores, and all that kind of stuff, which was helpful for me because I wasn’t sure how to market my books independently and all my own. And that’s kind of, I think, the thing that you have to do when you’re self-publishing, you have to kind of be all parts of the publisher on your own. And I think that some authors, some friends of mine who are self-published, they really like that because they like that creative control over all bits of the process. And some people don’t like it so much. There’s no rule of which way is the way, there are pros and cons to either way. But I can’t really speak to it from personal experience, unfortunately.

This event was originally recorded on January 22nd, 2021.