Emma Watson Sits Down with Our Shared Shelf Poet Rupi Kaur

Two prominent voices of the  #Metoo movement,  who share a passion for literature and the empowerment of women, Emma Watson and her current Our Shared Shelf author, New York Times bestselling “Instapoet” Rupi Kaur, revealed today that they met recently for an interview which undoubtedly included a chat about all things literature, as well as their common interests in women’s equality and amplifying the conversation surrounding women and sexual violence.

? Finally got to meet @rupikaur_ ! ? So excited for @oursharedshelf to hear our interview! ••• Rupi, I think I first publicly said I was a feminist aged 9, and since then I have been on a worldwide search to find my tribe. Thank you for being the kindred heart & spirit I knew you would be. Heartened to know you and grateful your work is out there. ?? Your friend, E x ••• #milkandhoney #oursharedshelf

A post shared by Emma Watson (@emmawatson) on Aug 20, 2018 at 9:00am PDT

 Watson announced in early July that Kaur’s book, Milk and Honey, which has been atop the New York Times bestsellers list for over 100 weeks, would be featured this summer as her Our Shared Shelf book and described how this collection of deeply moving prose about love, femininity and survival have touched her as they have millions of others through Kaur’s book, as well as her Instagram posts:

???? I am excited to announce that July/August’s pick for @oursharedshelf is our first poet, @rupikaur_ , and her book of poems Milk and Honey ??. Rupi Kaur is an Indian-born, Canadian-raised poet and artist. She chooses not to use upper case letters or punctuation in her poems as an ode to her native language, Punjabi. She travels the world, including recently to her native country India, performing her poems and drawing crowds of hundreds. Both of her books, Milk and Honey and The Sun and Her Flowers, have made the New York Times bestseller list, which for a poet, is astonishing. ••• Over my lifetime, I have fallen in and out of love with poetry. Performing poems was what got me into acting (I had a primary school teacher that made everyone learn one a week, and eventually I won a poetry recital competition!) In secondary school and at university, I loved deciphering the codes of poems in class discussion, but I honestly wondered if poetry would continue to feature in my life outside of an academic context. ••• Enter poets like @holliepoetry, @SabrinaMahfouz and Rupi Kaur- I demolished whole books in single sittings. Unlike poems I have often spent weeks unraveling, Rupi’s poems are not designed to obscure meaning or entertain too much ambiguity – they hit you like punches to the stomach. They are immediate, visceral and not easily digested. I am loathe to say Rupi has made poetry “accessible” because while this is the truth (Rupi’s poems and illustrations fit well into those famously square shaped Instagram frames), there is nothing easy or accessible about what Rupi chooses to talk about. In fact, the topics she chooses, are audacious. ••• Here is a 25-year-old girl saying the unsayable… to hundreds of thousands of people: that she has been raped, that at times she has been abused, that she bleeds. And sin of all sins… she actually likes the hair that grows on her body. Yes. She actually thinks it is beautiful. And that she is beautiful as God made her – what a transgression. That her body is her home and nobody else’s. ••• Full letter on: www.goodreads.com/oursharedshelf

A post shared by Emma Watson (@emmawatson) on Jul 17, 2018 at 2:36pm PDT

These two “kindred hearts and spirits”, as Watson deemed them, will surely have much to discuss, and their legions of follows will undoubtedly be listening. Both have been at the forefront of the campaign for change; most recently Watson chaired the opening session of a global summit geared towards securing philanthropic support for the effort to end violence against women and girls and Kaur, (who recently announced her US Tour), in numerous interviews and appearances with rock star-like receptions reading her work and discussing its relevance to the current climate.

Do you read along with Emma Watson’s Our Shared Shelf books? Are you, like millions of others, a fan of Rupi Kaur and the powerful words that flow from this young and sometimes controversial voice of feminism? Stay tuned to Leaky and Our Shared Shelf for more information from what sounds like an inspiring dialogue between these two women!