Twitter Aghast At Video Of Rupi Kaur Reading Her Own Poem

Poet Rupi Kaur is something of an infamous literary figure on the internet. Though she's quite successful, especially compared to other poets online, her poetry's plain prose and simplistic presentation has made her simultaneously perfect for Instagram and highly meme-worthy. Here's an example of one of her poems:

Though she's not exactly John Milton, her book Milk and Honey saw a reasonable amount of success and a fair bit of backlash and parodies around 2017. She had disappeared from the internet's eye in the years since, until yesterday evening, when a video of her reading one of her poems on TikTok went viral for being very creepy.

Rupi kaur needs to be locked up for this video pic.twitter.com/NzZvPVHjaX

— no name (@kanyewestluvr) March 22, 2021

The poem's clear sexual metaphor and Kaur's, er, zealous performance of it left users creeped out and ready to meme Kaur anew.

That's it I'm banning sex https://t.co/ESJLKKJxQd

— YIMMY EVIL (@fuckoffstupidd) March 23, 2021

I'm all for accessible poetry that gets people interested in literature but,,,, girl what is this why are you talking in cursive https://t.co/1P4HEYYlcK

— mohan (taylor's version) (@mow_hun) March 23, 2021

At first I thought she was mocking the poet, until I found out that she's the poet lmao. That actually makes it so much worse. https://t.co/iBUKqhdQmw

— Sauveur Des Idées Perdues. (@hintsofwhite) March 22, 2021

The performance unearthed a slew of Kaur parodies, with people posting their best Kaur impressions.

i love Rupi Kaur 😌 pic.twitter.com/ITqDEX2HRP

— Clara, anxious (@ramencult) March 22, 2021

I don't get why you all hate rupi kaur this is great pic.twitter.com/yCD6VkrNZi

— certified posting activist™ (@postingactivist) March 22, 2021

left,
arm
or right, arm?

it won’t hurt more,
than
the men who, LEFT when you,
were
right.

- Rupi Kaur giving me the vaccine

— Sahana Srinivasan (@sahana_srini) March 22, 2021

While critics may be divided on Kaur's work, it's hard to deny the emotional impact of pieces like this: