I had sleepless nights because hoping she does not die before I would never be able to buy her a first car, fill her cupboards with Tupperware and Table Charm, or have a spa date while wearing pink pyjama sets. This poetry collection is perfect for those that have experienced these events, but it raises enough questions for those that have not and simply wish to know what others have had the misfortune to experience. For those worried they will feel like aliens when reading about events unknown to them, this will not do such a thing, it will instead draw the reader in, verse by verse. Un approfondimento e uno spaccato sul tema dei diritti civili, nelle parole di una giovane poetessa somalo-britannica. My god, Warsan Shire writes beautiful poetry! And I mean it when I say that. This is beautiful poetry. Brutally beautiful. Like all great poetry, multiple readings come out of Shire’s words. I like to think of the fire as a metaphorical flame of individuality. When the invaders come, set your hearts ablaze and remember who you are; remember your culture; remember your language: remember you. When the men come do no lose this sense of you to the superimposing of another’s beliefs. Become angry, fight against it, rage at the injustice and learn how to beat it. But at the very root of it all, never ever forget. In such an idea Shire establishes the authority of the individual’s voice.

Sex and relationships are often the centre of her poems. The women are desperate, they yearn for love, affection, pleasure. Instead they mainly receive violence, terror and rejection. But Warsan also talks about the trauma that war and having to flee one's home country brought upon the inflicted. What it means to be a refugee, the fear of deportation, the sense of not belonging, the despair of never being able to return. Warshan Shire is a young Kenyan-born Somali poet and this book is her debut published in 2011. Her poetry is beautiful, full of sourness, hurt but also of love. Many of the poems gives voice to the plight of Muslim women of different generations and to refugees/migrants forced to flee for different reasons. My favourite poems are Things We Lost in the Summer, Birds, Ugly and Old Spice, but the greatest impact have the short pieces of prose labelled Conversations about Home (at the Deportation Center). Each piece reads like a protest, an outcry, like a way to give the thousands of immigrants and refugees a voice to tell their story. In our current political climate many people see refugees as a (terrorism) threat and refuse to give them a chance, but Shire's words cut so deep that you can’t turn a deaf ear to them.In the poem "Ugly", she speaks to a mother (maybe her mother?) who has a daughter who is considered ugly because she "reminded them of war." In the poem, Warsan reprimands the mother: You are her mother. Home itself becomes the speaking voice in st. 8, telling its people to “ leave, run away from me now” because it is no longer the place they grew up in, the land they belong to. The conclusion is a bitter one: “I dont know what I've become but i know that anywhere is safer than here”.

What your mother told you after your father left -- Your mother's first kiss -- Things we had lost in the summer -- Maymuun's mouth -- Grandfather's hands -- Bone -- Snow -- Birds -- Beauty -- The kitchen -- Fire -- When we last saw your father -- You were conceived -- Trying to swim with God -- Questions for Miriam -- Conversations about home -- Old Spice -- My foreign wife is dying and does not want to be touched -- Ugly -- Tea with our grandmothers -- In love and in war Today is a good day. Today is a wonderful day - any day that starts out like this is. I found a house full of words. Bold, fearless, silky, abrasive, wounding words. Warsan Shire is a house full of words. Words that don't cuddle you, words that envelope you. There's a deep sense of melancholy to her words and quite a lot of her poems contain explicit content - which I have absolutely no qualms about. If you don't do bold and abrasive, then this probably isn't for you. But personally, I love the way the words burn, sometimes sweet and silky is just too much of that - sweet and silky. I think that's the beauty of poetry, the creeping subtlety of it's power is you never know which line will sink or float you, make or mar you. You never know which line you'll latch unto and cling to for dear life. I've always thought that poetry emphasizes the delicacy of words and maximizes it's full utility. Where books might be pretentious, extravagant or redundant with fine literary sounding words, I've always thought, in a way, poetry thrives on it. But that's not to say it needs it, simply there's love to be found even in those that prove tedious. Maybe I feel this way because I knew poetry before I knew stories and novels. Some poems in this are more of 3's than 4's but on average, I rated this a 4 because it was a really good collection. In 2010 she obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing and one year later she released Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth, a poetry pamphlet. For her publication she chose flipped eye publishing, which publishes original poetry and prose on a not-for-profit model. This approach has allowed flipped eye to focus on developing new writers with potential, thus facilitating the emergence of truly unique literary talent. urn:lcp:teachingmymother0000shir:epub:1fc95e84-d426-4d7c-8739-827a05a04a8e Foldoutcount 0 Identifier teachingmymother0000shir Identifier-ark ark:/13960/s21d8ssmzjd Invoice 1652 Isbn 9781905233298Tell me this does not remind you of all the refugees that have fled and are still fleeing from Syria, Somalia, Eritrea, Cuba, Mexico, China… This poem speaks of a foul sense of loss and longing. The type that one wears like a perfume but stinks like a sewer. It's not pretty. It's not the kind of sorrow anyone wants to hold, comfort or be associated with. That kind of heaviness means auto-ostracism. Shire presents that kind of ugly sorrow in this poem. What I love most about it are the last lines which make you think it may be ugly but damn it's beautiful. I know a few things to be true. I do not know where I am going, where I have come from is disappearing, I am unwelcome and my beauty is not beauty here. My body is burning with the shame of not belonging, my body is longing.”