Review of Shire's Full-Length Poetry Collection Debut

Original written for credit for Creative Writing 5050: Poetry on December 4, 2024

How does one write about the different traumatic experiences of an adolescent with absent parents, women in extreme patriarch societies, and refugees in a foreign country? One does so with beautiful, rich imagery while not diminishing the truth of the trauma or the resilience of the people. Warsan Shire, a Somali British poet born in Kenya and raised in London, takes the reader on a journey of the harsh realities that young girls, women, and refugees experience. She started that journey in two previously published chapbooks, Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth and Her Blue Body. In her debut full-length poetry collection, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head, Shire continues this journey by allowing her poetry to be a voice for the marginalized, infusing Somalian culture, Somali and Arabic language, and pop references in her poems and thereby creating compelling verse while bringing witness to the horrors of life.

Shire divides her collection into four sections to examine the refugee struggle, parental and children's relationships, adolescence and womanhood—including those in extreme patriarch societies—and the resilience of humans even in experiencing extreme trauma. When addressing the lives of refugees, Shire gives evidence of their struggle as they try to earn a living and assimilate. Using descriptions like “dreaming in the wrong language,” “no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark,” “moving in the smoke, remember / joy like blindness: swimming in Jazeera Beach / gorging on belonging, barwaaqo,” Shire allows the reader to witness the horror that drove refugees from their home country, the struggles they face in an unfamiliar and unrelenting world, and the longing they feel for their own people and place.

Several of Shire’s poems continue in this thread of viewing the hardships of refugees, but through the lives of father and Hooyo—mother in Somali—weaving the themes of adolescence and absent parents. In “Photographs of Hooyo,” Shire uses descriptions of photographs to chronicle the story of Hooyo. The refugee woman goes through a transformation from distraught to relishing life to being trapped in the past:

Hooyo in bed, holding negatives up to the light, squinting at underdeveloped ghosts, names of the dead thrown behind her like salt, her atrophied youth in storage, mumbling Magool under her breath, war flaying Somalia alive.

Shire also observes the father, but none so poignant as “Backwards.” The poem contains two fifteen-line stanzas, and the second stanza reverses the first. This allows the narrator to reverse the story of their and the auditor’s childhood, erasing the trauma caused and bringing “Dad” back, “I’ll rewrite the whole life and this time there’ll be so much love, / you won’t be able to see beyond it.”

The theme that Shire wrestles with the most and, in turn, producing her more notable poems, is womanhood, bringing needed attention to the resilience of women despite the tragedies that befall them. She explores the relationships between women—mother and daughter, friendships, and women brought together by situation and culture. In bringing light to these moments of trauma, Shire shows the strength women must have to endure life. In her poem “Bless the House,” Shire demonstrates this with the warning of a mother and the narrator’s own story of men who entered her life:

Mother says there are locked rooms inside all women. Sometimes, the men—they come with keys, and sometimes, the men—they come with hammers.

Shire balances this poem between the wrong men inflicted upon the narrator and the mother with the retaliation they will inflict back, and in doing so, weaves strength into the two women. She ends the poem with a resilient triumph, “At parties I point to my body and say / Oh, this old thing? This is where men come to die.”

Shire wields rich imagery soaked in the Somali language and culture with extreme ease, imbuing her verse with beauty despite the challenging subjects. In “Barwaaqo,” or Utopia, writes about Hooyo again; however, this time, Shire describes Hooyo’s youth and uses illustrations from Somalia that activate the five senses to paint the picturesque scene of Hooyo’s past before seeking refuge:

breath of sweet, oud-scented, turmeric glow, soft as ripe mango, reclining on rooftops of silk, desert flowers tucked in her hair,

Shire also uses news stories and pop cultural references throughout her poetry. The first poem in the book “Extreme Girlhood” incorporates well-known pop references: “Are you there, God?” from Judy Bloom’s novel and “At first I was afraid, I was petrified” from Gloria Gaynor’s song “I Will Survive.” These references give evidence of resilience in a familiar way. Shire ends the poem with the young woman declaring survival despite the odds set against her, “Mama, I made it / out of your home / alive, raised by / the voices / in my head.”

In her poem “The Abubakr Girls Are Different,” Shire displays her ability to address traumatic situations most prominently. The poem starts with the Abubakr girls returning—from what, we do not know yet—and sitting together “in a circle by the apple tree / in their mother’s garden.” Shire then addresses the patriarchal society in which the girls reside:

All five of them seem older. Amel’s hardened nipples push

through the paisley of her blouse, minarets

calling men to worship.

Daughter is synonymous with traitor,

their father mutters

in his sleep.

Here, Shire describes the natural reaction of a young woman’s growing body as being “minarets / calling to men to worship.” Already, the young women is being sexualized, and in the next stanza, the blame is placed on the daughter by the father. Shire continues this thread in the next couple of stanzas with the young girls’ figures “waiting to grow / into our hunger” and again with the narrator being chastised for her slouched position and the “shame warming my skin.”

The following stanzas diverge from the previous three-line to two two-line ones, moving into a slight interlude of two young adolescents talking about the natural beginning of the menstrual cycle, a conversation that happens amongst young female friends everywhere. From here, the poem returns to the three-line stanzas and takes a horrific turn as the crux of the poem is reached— the Abubakr girls have undergone female castration. Shire does not outright state what procedure has been performed but describes the recovery, comparing the young girls to mythical sea creatures gaining new legs, “After the procedure, the girls learn how to walk again, mermaids / with new legs, soft knees buckling under / their raw, sinless bodies.” In the final stanza, the girls band together, “holding mirrors / to the mouths of our skirts, / comparing wounds.” Shire allows the reader to witness the story of their trauma by focusing on the recovery and the young women comparing wounds, bringing focus to the girls and their resilience and bonding.

With this ability to create illustrative storytelling with beautiful lyrical words, Shire brings light to the horrors of women and refugees. Her poetry allows the story of their plight and survival to be told to readers around the world while upholding dignity and humanity. While these stories are uncomfortable to read, they must be told and listened to, and Shire’s lyrics provide a way.