{"id":76333,"date":"2022-08-16T12:06:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-16T16:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=76333"},"modified":"2022-08-23T16:10:34","modified_gmt":"2022-08-23T20:10:34","slug":"poems-about-culture-and-heritage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/poems-about-culture-and-heritage\/","title":{"rendered":"Rupi Kaur’s Poems About Culture & Heritage in South Asia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What are some of the best poems about culture and heritage? What is poet Rupi Kaur’s perspective on her South Asian heritage? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rupi Kaur is a poet and visual artist who emigrated to Canada from India as a young girl. Kaur’s poems offer insight into her cultural background, including why she criticizes certain aspects of her Indian heritage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep reading for a look at Kaur’s poems about culture and heritage in South Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Kaur’s Heritage & Culture: Poems About India<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Rupi Kaur talks about finding a new sense of belonging<\/a> through her poems about culture and heritage, which focus on Kaur’s family and background. In the \u201cRooting\u201d section of her book of poems, The Sun and Her Flowers<\/em>, Kaur shows newfound appreciation for her Indian heritage and her family\u2019s experience emigrating from India to Canada. While she appreciates many aspects of her cultural background, Kaur also criticizes certain aspects of South Asian culture as misogynistic<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kaur’s Criticism of Her Cultural Background<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

While Kaur finds a new appreciation for her background, she also recognizes some negative aspects of her heritage and culture. Through her poems about culture and heritage in The Sun and Her Flowers<\/em>, she explains how some elements of South Asian culture are misogynistic and how this misogyny informs the lives of South Asian girls and women<\/strong>. She often connects this back to the experiences of her mother\u2014Kaur describes how her mother was taught to be submissive and obedient to the men in her life, and how she, in turn, helped teach Kaur those same lessons herself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: Rosjke Hasseldine (The Mother-Daughter Puzzle<\/em><\/a>) further discusses the complicated relationship between misogyny and mother-daughter relationships. She warns that women shouldn\u2019t place too much blame on their mothers for teaching or enforcing misogynistic views\u2014while they aren\u2019t entirely innocent, they are themselves victims of the same beliefs. Instead, Hasseldine suggests that mothers and daughters approach their relationship as equals in similar circumstances. This dynamic allows them to empathize with each other and challenge misogynistic beliefs together instead of resenting each other or getting defensive.)   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, Kaur’s poems about culture and heritage address the subject of female infanticide in Indian communities<\/strong>. She describes how, for centuries, families would kill their baby girls because they saw them as a burden on the family and valued boys more highly. Kaur also shows how this practice continues today both in India and in South Asian immigrant communities like the one she grew up in. This practice, Kaur expresses, shows how misogyny devalues and even ends the lives of women and girls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: While Kaur suggests violence against women results<\/em> in female infanticide, some scholars suggest that female infanticide also causes<\/em> further instability and violence<\/a>\u2014both against women with increased rates of rape or kidnapping; and in general, with increased rates of murder and violent crime. Anthropological research argues that India\u2019s skewed sex ratio\u2014currently 108.1 males per 100 females<\/a>\u2014creates a surplus of men (often lower-class men from rural areas where female infanticide is more common) who are unable to find wives or create families. These men are more likely to join violent gangs or militias for respect or financial stability.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What are some of the best poems about culture and heritage? What is poet Rupi Kaur’s perspective on her South Asian heritage? Rupi Kaur is a poet and visual artist who emigrated to Canada from India as a young girl. Kaur’s poems offer insight into her cultural background, including why she criticizes certain aspects of her Indian heritage. Keep reading for a look at Kaur’s poems about culture and heritage in South Asia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":76345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,24],"tags":[723],"class_list":["post-76333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","category-society","tag-the-sun-and-her-flowers","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nRupi Kaur's Poems About Culture & Heritage in South Asia - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What are some of the most interesting poems about culture and heritage? 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