Queen Bey told you to take note of this name.
Growing up, I always had this appreciation for a play on words and how it resonates with the human ear. Introduced to Jazz as a young kid, I remember James Baldwin collaborative motif with some of the world's most excellent jazz musicians; Louie Armstrong and Charlie Parker for a song, Am I Blue, Gil Scott Heron The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, and then the birth of Neo-Soul I grew fond of Jill Scott from North Philly reading an original piece, Nothing Is for Nothing on Def Poetry. Like before, I wasn't looking, I just happened to be in the right place, and this is how I found Warsan Shire.
LONDON, England - A Somali British writer and poet born in Nairobi. She moved to London with her family when she was still young and has traveled extensively for her poetry. Warsan traveled throughout the world, including in the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, North America, South Africa, and Kenya, sharing her poems of traumatic experiences of immigrants and refugees from war-torn regions. Also, she opens our minds to such topics; as romance, dysfunctional family, body deformity, misogyny, extreme criticism of oneself, and sexual assault. Warsan's words are soulful, descriptive, and the memoir of East Africa. They evoke the feeling of not belonging and longing for a home and an identity.
A recipient of the Peabody Award-winning visual album Lemonade and the Disney film Black Is King for her poetic contribution in collaboration with Beyoncé Knowles-Carter.
Warsan writes the short film Brave Girl Rising, highlighting the voices and faces of Somali girls in Africa’s largest refugee camp. Warsan’s focus is obvious, but her words deepen to the core, yet her poems are unapologetic. For more reasons than one, her plot is revolutionary.
Warsan's poems have been published and featured in various literary publications, translated into Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Danish, Estonian, etc. Now promoting her newest release, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in her head.
“The beautifully crafted poems in this collection are fiercely tender gifts.”—Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist and Hunger.
ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022—Vogue, BuzzFeed, Esquire, Bustle, Essence, The Week, Lit Hub
Mama, I made it / out of your home / alive, raised by / the voices / in my head.
With her first full-length poetry collection, Warsan Shire introduces us to a young girl who makes her way toward womanhood in the absence of a nurturing guide. Drawing from her own life and pop culture and news headlines, Shire finds vivid, unique details in the experiences of refugees and immigrants, mothers and daughters, Black women and teenage girls. In Shire’s hands, lives spring into fullness. This is noisy life, full of music and weeping and surahs and sirens and birds. This is fragrant life, full of blood and perfume and shisha smoke and jasmine and incense. This is polychrome life, full of henna and moonlight and lipstick and turmeric and kohl. The long-awaited collection from one of our most exciting contemporary poets, this book is a blessing, an incantatory celebration of resilience and survival. Each reader will come away changed.
Subscribe to Warsan Sire today!
Comments