Nayyirah Waheed reopens long-running dispute with Rupi Kaur over 'salt' and 'milk and honey'

Poet renews accusations of literary appropriation while linking dispute to race, recognition and power in publishing

A decade after Rupi Kaur’s milk and honey became a global publishing phenomenon, poet Nayyirah Waheed has once again put their long-running literary dispute in the spotlight — framing it not simply as a question of literary similarity, but of accountability, race and who gets recognised in the contemporary poetry world.

Just recently, Waheed posted on Instagram accusing Kaur of taking credit for her work and announcing that her book salt would be distributed in stores around the world, allowing readers to finally see what she described as the original creation.

 

 

 

 

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“Rupi Kaur, since you took credit for my blueprint/literary innovation ‘salt’ (in front of the whole world) — I’ll also take the credit for those 11-12+ million copies of Milk and Honey”, she said. 

“I’ll also take credit for the multi-millions that were made from these global sales, the industry, the economy, the entire genre, that was created from my innovation. Thank you”, she further said, adding, “Get ready to see ‘salt’. EVERYWHERE”.

Waheed also used the post to argue that she was not the first writer or artist to accuse another artist of taking from their work. She cited Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton’s Hound Dog and Elvis, Little Richard and Pat Boone, Richard Berry and The Kingsmen, and Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon and Led Zeppelin.

 

 

 

 

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The post came days after Waheed published a lengthy statement on September 11 directly addressing Kaur and her team, accusing them of refusing to engage with her invitation for a formal discussion mediated by a major media outlet.

“At the time of this post,” Waheed wrote, “Kaur and her team are using silence, ignoring, and refusal of acknowledgment of Waheed’s invitation for a formal discussion with a major media outlet as mediator.”

The latest statement goes beyond the plagiarism allegations that first brought the two poets into the same conversation almost a decade ago.

Waheed accused Kaur of relying on what she described as “silence and erasure tactics” while continuing with her public career and upcoming performances.

She also framed the broader dispute through the language of “Anti-Blackness, Racism, Erasure, Appropriation, and Cultural Extraction”, alleging that Black writers — particularly Black women — have been treated as sources of creative material without corresponding recognition or accountability.

She continued, “Kaur believes she can use fame, resources, and the machine of the mainstream as a shield — because she has done so for 13+ years. She has been rewarded by the world for stealing from a Black woman in real time. She believes she can continue to operate in this way — but not this time”.

 

 

 

 

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Waheed self-published salt in 2013, while Kaur’s milk and honey followed in 2014 and went on to become one of the most commercially successful poetry collections of the 21st century. Kaur’s publisher says the book has sold more than seven million copies worldwide and been translated into more than 40 languages.

In a 2018 interview, Kaur was asked directly about Waheed’s accusation. She responded that the literary form in question was not something she believed either poet owned, pointing to earlier writers who had used lowercase writing and short-form poetry.

The similarities between salt and milk and honey have remained a point of debate. Some commentators have argued that they are too extensive to dismiss as coincidence, while others have pointed out that minimalism, short-form poetry, lowercase writing and social-media presentation were not invented by either poet and had existed in different forms for decades.

A 2017 analysis in The Varsity described what it considered evidence of “hyper similarity” and paraphrasing, while stopping short of definitively declaring Kaur’s work plagiarised.

The Guardian similarly reported on the plagiarism controversy, noting that the two poets shared a broader form of short, confessional poetry and that Waheed had accused Kaur of ignoring messages concerning the similarities.

The dispute, however, has increasingly been framed by Waheed as something larger than a question of whether two poets share a similar writing style. Her latest posts place the issue within a broader argument about race, publishing, cultural power and the economics of literary visibility.

For now, the latest development is not a legal ruling or an institutional finding, but Waheed’s decision to publicly reopen the confrontation in unusually direct language. Nearly a decade after milk and honey helped transform Kaur into a global literary brand, Waheed is making clear that, in her view, the story surrounding that rise is not finished.