Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head: Shortlisted for the 2022 Felix Dennis Prize

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Children’ are ‘distant galaxies’ while father ‘hang[s] on the edge of the moon’, as unreachable as innocence lost. In “Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head,” Shire boldly weaves together a narrative of what it means to be displaced, disconnected from home, and incredibly vulnerable. Positioning one above the other, Shire connects the sentiments of “I was an ugly child” to the sorrowful tale of when a mother “left the house and took her shoes. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

Conversely, in “Victoria in Illiyin,” she embodies the voice of the community who has lost “our Victoria. I thought that the increase in sophistication of the poems made some of them too cryptic and it took out the impact the 1st collection had on me. Some of the best poem for men are here: Glitter On The Mouths Of Boys, Joyride, My Father The Astronaut, Bless The Gun Tossed Into A River. In the poems “Drowning in Dawson’s Creek” and “Victoria in Illiyin,” Shire utilizes footnotes to tie the content of the poems to specific and devastating events.

Drawing from her life and the lives of loved ones, as well as pop culture, news headlines and banter, Warsan untwines vivid, transformative details from the experiences of refugees and immigrants, mothers and daughters, Black women and teenage girls. I was a little upset that some of poems where in the previous book, but she made changes to them that feel like final forms that really fit into the maturity of her talent and this book.

To say Warsan Shire’s first full-length poetry collection is ‘highly anticipated’ is an understatement. There is a deep shared knowing between the speaker and the women in her life that makes possible escape, even if escape is only in the mind, even if escape cannot reprieve the vulnerability of compounded collective traumas.Sono rimasta folgorata da questa raccolta di poesia, la complessità e la varietà dei temi a comporre il mosaico di essere donne migranti, africane, nere, musulmane, divise tra la nostalgia della patria e l’adattamento al mondo occidentale, figlie rifiutate o poco amate… tanti, tantissimi argomenti, ma raccontati con pennellate folgoranti (mi ripeto ma è il termine giusto), dolorose, estremamente vivide ma mai pietose. Anche il tema del rifugiato ricorre e colpisce l’abilità dell’autrice di restituire immagini precise di un’esperienza che non ha fatto personalmente (figlia dei rifugiati somali è cresciuta nel Regno Unito). All the torturous vagaries of living-while-woman, living-while-Black, living-while-refugee, written in and through precarity's unassuageable condition. Poems of migration, womanhood, trauma and resilience from the award-winning Somali British poet Warsan Shire, celebrated collaborator on Beyoncé's Lemonade and Black Is King .

You think you don't recognize the poet's name but most of the words in Beyonce's Lemonade were penned by Warsan Shire. While reading this startling collection, there was much to learn and of things taken for granted in civilized society. There is pain, regret and anger in the gentle, wistful tone, as ‘dreams [are] macerated under grief’s gaze. Bless the Daughter is published in a gorgeous hardback edition with the most beautiful end papers that I have ever seen – the folks over at Penguin Random House sure know how I love a good bright HOT PINK!Bless The Daughter Raised By The Voice In Her Head: Poems” (2022) is written by the multi-award-winning Somali-British author/poet Warsan Shire: who served as the first Young Poet Laurate of London where she was raised after resettlement.

All the brilliance of her lean, monumental Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth is magnified in this remarkable new book.

I reread it in 2021 and fell utterly in love with Shire, her ability to string sentences together, and find the right words and images for hauntingly sorrowful and desperate situations. Another thing that rubbed me the wrong way is the fact that some of these old poems were altered slightly for this "new" collection – often for the worse. A moving passage with a dynamic approach to separation and migration with images of birds as well as a barrier even in dreams. While Shire’s presentation of powerful narratives can draw a deep reaction from readers, her straightforward structure and often disconnected tone makes the collection feel incomplete. And yet, this is to be expected for a work that aims to share the experience of a specific community with the world.