Power Q & A with Kelly Kaur
Q: What is your inspiration that led to My Love is a Durian, your first poetry collection?
A: I never imagined that I would have a poetry collection. In the last 5 years, I decided to pursue my passion for poetry that I have always had since I was a young girl growing up in Singapore. English classes were my favourite at school. I remember that we even had a class on poetry every week. I could not wait for Wednesdays at 2 pm. With our trusty teacher at the helm, we read poems aloud in class, memorized them, and I was lucky enough to be selected to perform some of them on stage for school celebrations. I was only 11. There was this one poem that I still remember about how even the powerful Queen of England had to stop and obey the red traffic lights. The love for poetry was planted in my soul from elementary school – the power of the arts.
Many, many years flew by, and I contemplated more about how I should write rather than just think about it. I wrote a few poems when I was at the University of Calgary, and I sent a few off. Success. I had 2 poems published in 2 different university journals. That was it. Then, I had a long spell of rejections. I stopped. Then, the cliché of life took over.
Interestingly, five years ago, I took up my metaphorical writing pen yet again – now, I wanted to write anything and everything, especially what I found intriguing and challenging: poems. I experimented. I struggled. I read. Oh no - some of my poems were rejected. Celebration - some of my poems were accepted. With each published poem, I became emboldened and excited. I submitted my poems to everywhere in the world. I searched for opportunities and took a chance on sending them off.
Month by month, my portfolio of published poems grew. I did not even realize how many published poems I had until I attended a writing residency in Singapore a few years ago and held my haphazard, messy portfolio of poems in my hands. The incredible Singaporean poet, Alvin Pang, was my writing residency mentor. I was the only writer in the group of 20 who was the poetry enthusiast. Because of that low poetry demand, I was also invited to be in the fiction residency with Canadian author, Madeleine Thien. Thus, instead of cancelling the poetry part of the residency, I ended up becoming the lucky writer who had a one-on-one mentorship with Alvin Pang in the mornings and the second one in the afternoons in a group with fiction mentor, Madeleine Thien. I was in writing heaven. Alvin encouraged me to pursue my poetry dreams, and I did!
In 2024, at a second writers’ residency in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, I met and was inspired by Dr. Rosslyn Prosser, the wonderful Australian author, writer, Associate Professor and Programme Leader for the MA in Creative Writing at LASALLE College of the Arts, part of the University of the Arts Singapore and also a Senior Lecturer and researcher at the University of Adelaide, Australia.
Now, I have both Alvin Pang’s and Rosslyn Prosser’s blurbs on the back of my first poetry collection, My Love is a Durian.
The power of possibility.
Immigration, rebellion, and family drive this uplifting and inspiring debut poetry collection.
In My Love is a Durian, Singapore and Canada twine and intertwine, the places adopted and left behind bunch and twist. Kelly Kaur leads readers through markets in Singapore and up mountainsides in Kananaskis. These poems enliven the senses, from the taste of durians eaten fresh to the chill of snow melting on the cheek, as they dance the insider-outsider dance.
My Love is a Durian seeks belonging without judgement, a place to rest, a place to work, and a place to grow. It shares the easy happiness of time with friends and family, the tension of coming of age, the fear and joy of making a life. These poems tangle with ideas of colour and race, freedom and acceptance. These are poems that reach out to readers to create empathy, connection. My Love is a Durian lifts up the voices that sing in the margins of the world.
Kelly Kaur is a writer, author, and speaker. Her poems, short stories, and nonfiction have landed on the moon, published on beer cans, danced on stage, and travelled to galleries and museums. She was awarded the South Asian Inspiration Award for Outstanding Achievement in Arts and Culture, nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and won an honourable mention in the Creators of Justice Literary Awards. She was also awarded The Top 25 Canadian Immigrant Award in 2024.