But Warson indirectly cautions me in a quote from the New Yorker article. I wanted to feature it in recognition of the devastating war in Ukraine. One of the reasons ASSIMILATION jumped out at me yesterday was how it speaks to what more than one million Ukrainians are now experiencing. How her poems, like ASSIMILATION, based on a foundation of fierce integrity and personal experience, give a crafted voice to experiences of war and dislocation that too many people all over the world are having! According to a recent February feature in the New Yorkershe has eighty thousand followers on Twitter and fifty-seven thousand on Instagram and those numbers are likely growing! But for me, I am less interested in the social media numbers than I am about the power and impact of her poems. She first became a literary sensation on Tumblr and then her following grew as she became London’s youth Poet Laureate in 2014 but especially because of her collaboration with Beyoncè on the album Lemonade in 2016. To see my previous blog post on Warsan in 2020 please click here. She may not yet be a household name around the world but she might be getting close! And her new collection can only add to her public profile. Warsan is a thirty-four year old Somali British poet, born in Nairobi, raised in London and now living in California with her husband and two children. You can feel it, taste it, smell it in the poem above, ASSIMILATION, from her recently published collection BLESS THE DAUGHTER RAISED BY A VOICE IN HER HEAD. In her blood, and the blood inside her words, sings Warsan Shire’s refugee experience. Warson Shire from BLESS THE DAUGHTER RAISED BY VOICE IN HER HEAD, Penguin Canada, 2022 While it slept, there may have been a change in classification. The refugee is sure it’s still human but worries that overnight, Those unable to grow the extra skinĭie within the first six months in a host country.Īt each and every checkpoint the refugee is asked How many pills does it take to fall asleep? I bolt my body whenever I get the chance. In the second, your father cries into his hands. In the first is your mother’s unpacked suitcase. Somali British Poet Warsan Shire ASSIMILATION
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