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ottessa91's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.5
lectriceye__'s review against another edition
3.0
de momento es un 3,5
me ha pasado con bless the daughter raised by a voice in her head que me han gustado muchísimo cinco o seis poemas (algunos tanto como para convertirse en all-time favorites), pero el resto me han dejado un poco fría. no termino de conectar con su forma de plasmar el cuerpo y la feminidad (que no necesariamente con su visión), y la distancia que me separa del tema central y de sus experiencias, en mi caso, ha sido insalvable; me estás contando algo que no conozco, por lo que cómo lo cuentas es fundamental. pero vaya, al margen de eso, creo que shire tiene una voz propia y una perspectiva muy interesante y que vale la pena echarle un ojo a su trabajo. yo estaré pendiente de lo que saque a continuación.
me ha pasado con bless the daughter raised by a voice in her head que me han gustado muchísimo cinco o seis poemas (algunos tanto como para convertirse en all-time favorites), pero el resto me han dejado un poco fría. no termino de conectar con su forma de plasmar el cuerpo y la feminidad (que no necesariamente con su visión), y la distancia que me separa del tema central y de sus experiencias, en mi caso, ha sido insalvable; me estás contando algo que no conozco, por lo que cómo lo cuentas es fundamental. pero vaya, al margen de eso, creo que shire tiene una voz propia y una perspectiva muy interesante y que vale la pena echarle un ojo a su trabajo. yo estaré pendiente de lo que saque a continuación.
drushtii's review against another edition
4.0
im on a poetry binge and this was a good start. noice.
spenkevich's review against another edition
5.0
Over the past few years you’ve likely encountered the poem Home by Somali British writer Warsan Shire, a heartbreaking poem about refugees that begins with ‘no one leaves home unless / home is the mouth of a shark / you only run for the border / when you see the whole city running as well.’ The poem implores empathy and understanding, and the tragedy is how many times the poem has circulated the internet because Shire’s words are the words needed at that moment of the news cycle. But Warsan Shire is much more than a viral poem, and with Bless the Daughter Raised By a Voice in Her Head, the 33 year old poets first full-length collection, she shows she has a multitude of words that will all make us better for having heard them. With arresting poetic language and visceral imagery, Shire’s long awaited collection will break your heart over and over agains as she addresses themes or migration, womanhood, familial relations fractured across the globe, and while trauma permeates the pages so does hope and the will to survive.
Speaking of the poem Home, it reappears in this collection newly revised and with a part 2 accompanying the already harrowing words. The line breaks mostly removed to read as prose poetry, Shire revists the poem to discuss the trauma that comes after leaving home and finding yourself lost in a new place.
So much is contained in this passage and these words resonate throughout the collection, addressing themes of being Othered in a new place while feeling your past disintegrating. ‘I can’t get the refugee out of my body,’ she writes in Assimilation, a poem of either sleepless nights or ‘dreaming in the wrong language.’ Always ready with a well earned stunner of an ending she warns:
‘those unable to grow the extra skin
die within the first six months in a host country.
At each and every checkpoint the refugee is asked
are you human?
The refugee is sure it’s still human but worries that overnight,
while it slept, there may have been a change in classification.’
Another aspect of the poem Shire has frequently wanted to highlight is that she writes about Black refugees. The poem has been used and gone viral during many refugee situations, and she has said in interviews 'I wrote those words for Black immigrants, and the most I’ve ever seen those words used was when the immigrants and refugees were lighter-skinned with lighter eyes. Obviously, you want your work to be used in any way to raise funds for all suffering people, but I want people to know who I wrote that about.' So, at the wishes of the author, please keep this in mind when reading the poem.
Dreaming recurs throughout the collection, such as the conclusion to Saint Hooyo (Hooyoo meaning mother as explained in the glossary of Somali terms at the end of the collection):
‘I don’t recognize my children
they speak and dream in the wrong language
as much as I understand
it may as well be the language of birds’
A moving passage with a dynamic approach to separation and migration with images of birds as well as a barrier even in dreams. I can’t attest to the validity but I’ve heard it said that you should translate into the language in which you dream, and this passage brought me the thought of translating oneself into a new country, as well as a person’s hopes and dreams being reconfigured because of the passage to a new country.
Shire addresses the agency over one’s own body in multiple ways throughout the collection, from skin and voice marking one as an Other, to the gaze of men in a patriarchal society. Poems of women using pigeon blood on their wedding night to appear ‘chaste’, to ‘protecting body and home / from intruders.’ Dangers are everywhere, such as in a traffic stop where young people are compared to ‘an animal standing on hind legs / pretending to understand why it must die.’
It is a joy to read through these poems and see Shire continue to bless the reader with her words. Musical artist Beyonce had a good eye when she chose Shire to write for her Lemonade documentary and we are all better for having had her brought into the literary world. Bless the Daughter… chronicles life from ‘extreme girlhood’ to coming into womanhood, carrying the history of traumas—both personal and generational—across borders of self, culture and country. These are poems of ‘fragrant life, full of blood and perfume and shisha smoke and jasmine and incense,’ as the poet writes, ‘full of henna and moonlight and lipstick and turmeric and kohl.’ There is trauma present on every page, but through her words of understanding and examination we find that she is able to ‘rewrite this whole life and this time there’ll be so much love, / you won’t be able to see beyond it.’ A must read.
5/5
Midnight in the Foreign Food Aisle
Dear Uncle, is everything you love foreign
or are you foreign to everything you love?
We’re all animals and the body wants what it wants,
I know. The blonde said Come in, take off
your coat and what do you want to drink?
Love is not haram but after years of fucking
women who cannot pronounce your name,
you find yourself in the foreign food aisle,
beside the turmeric and the saffron,
pressing your face into the ground, praying
in a language you haven’t used in years.
Speaking of the poem Home, it reappears in this collection newly revised and with a part 2 accompanying the already harrowing words. The line breaks mostly removed to read as prose poetry, Shire revists the poem to discuss the trauma that comes after leaving home and finding yourself lost in a new place.
‘Where I came from is disappearing. I am unwelcome. My beauty is not beauty here. My body is burning with the shame of not belonging, my body is longing. I am the sin of memory and the absence of memory…’
So much is contained in this passage and these words resonate throughout the collection, addressing themes of being Othered in a new place while feeling your past disintegrating. ‘I can’t get the refugee out of my body,’ she writes in Assimilation, a poem of either sleepless nights or ‘dreaming in the wrong language.’ Always ready with a well earned stunner of an ending she warns:
‘those unable to grow the extra skin
die within the first six months in a host country.
At each and every checkpoint the refugee is asked
are you human?
The refugee is sure it’s still human but worries that overnight,
while it slept, there may have been a change in classification.’
Another aspect of the poem Shire has frequently wanted to highlight is that she writes about Black refugees. The poem has been used and gone viral during many refugee situations, and she has said in interviews 'I wrote those words for Black immigrants, and the most I’ve ever seen those words used was when the immigrants and refugees were lighter-skinned with lighter eyes. Obviously, you want your work to be used in any way to raise funds for all suffering people, but I want people to know who I wrote that about.' So, at the wishes of the author, please keep this in mind when reading the poem.
Dreaming recurs throughout the collection, such as the conclusion to Saint Hooyo (Hooyoo meaning mother as explained in the glossary of Somali terms at the end of the collection):
‘I don’t recognize my children
they speak and dream in the wrong language
as much as I understand
it may as well be the language of birds’
A moving passage with a dynamic approach to separation and migration with images of birds as well as a barrier even in dreams. I can’t attest to the validity but I’ve heard it said that you should translate into the language in which you dream, and this passage brought me the thought of translating oneself into a new country, as well as a person’s hopes and dreams being reconfigured because of the passage to a new country.
Shire addresses the agency over one’s own body in multiple ways throughout the collection, from skin and voice marking one as an Other, to the gaze of men in a patriarchal society. Poems of women using pigeon blood on their wedding night to appear ‘chaste’, to ‘protecting body and home / from intruders.’ Dangers are everywhere, such as in a traffic stop where young people are compared to ‘an animal standing on hind legs / pretending to understand why it must die.’
It is a joy to read through these poems and see Shire continue to bless the reader with her words. Musical artist Beyonce had a good eye when she chose Shire to write for her Lemonade documentary and we are all better for having had her brought into the literary world. Bless the Daughter… chronicles life from ‘extreme girlhood’ to coming into womanhood, carrying the history of traumas—both personal and generational—across borders of self, culture and country. These are poems of ‘fragrant life, full of blood and perfume and shisha smoke and jasmine and incense,’ as the poet writes, ‘full of henna and moonlight and lipstick and turmeric and kohl.’ There is trauma present on every page, but through her words of understanding and examination we find that she is able to ‘rewrite this whole life and this time there’ll be so much love, / you won’t be able to see beyond it.’ A must read.
5/5
Midnight in the Foreign Food Aisle
Dear Uncle, is everything you love foreign
or are you foreign to everything you love?
We’re all animals and the body wants what it wants,
I know. The blonde said Come in, take off
your coat and what do you want to drink?
Love is not haram but after years of fucking
women who cannot pronounce your name,
you find yourself in the foreign food aisle,
beside the turmeric and the saffron,
pressing your face into the ground, praying
in a language you haven’t used in years.
carrieemoran's review against another edition
3.0
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book. I, like many others, have been blown away by some of Warsan Shire's other work, but this one didn't do it for me. That said, I think many people would resonate with and appreciate this, but maybe it wasn't the best time for me to be reading it.