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Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head (2022) by Warsan Shire: poems
Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head is the first full-length poetry collection by the Kenyan-born Somali-British poet Warsan Shire, published by Random House on 1 March 2022 and in Britain by Chatto & Windus. Its poems deal with girlhood, family, mothers and daughters, migration, trauma and survival, and use Somali words such as hooyo (mother). It was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize and the Dylan Thomas Prize.
Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head
- Author
- Warsan Shire
- Year
- 2022
- Publisher
- Random House; Chatto & Windus (UK)
- Language
- English
- ISBN
- 9780593134351
- Sources
- 6 sources
The book
Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head is the first full-length collection by Warsan Shire, a poet born in Kenya in 1988 to Somali parents, who moved to Britain as a baby (Wikipedia). It was published by Random House in New York on 1 March 2022, as a 96-page paperback, and in the United Kingdom by Chatto & Windus (Publishers Weekly; PN Review).
Before it, Shire had published two shorter pamphlets: Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth (2011) and Her Blue Body (2015) (Wikipedia).
What it contains
The collection opens with the poem "Extreme Girlhood". Other poems include "Lullaby for Father", "My Father, the Astronaut", "Home", "Assimilation", "Bless This House", "Hooyo Isn't Home", "The Abubakr Girls Are Different", "Bless the Qumayo" and "Hooyo Full of Grace" (PRISM international).
Reviewers describe its main subjects as:
- Girlhood and shame. Poems about shame passed between fathers, daughters and girls, and about sexual violence.
- Mothers and daughters. A relationship shown as layered with both understanding and anger; the Somali word hooyo (mother) recurs through the book.
- Migration and home. Poems about refugees and immigrants, home as a dangerous place, and phone calls to family abroad.
- Mental health and survival. Trauma, illness and the ways people endure (PRISM international).
Shire's earlier poem "Home", with the lines "no one leaves home unless / home is the mouth of a shark", has been widely quoted by refugees and their supporters (Wikipedia). Somalis in Britain are covered on Somalis in London.
How it was received
- The collection was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection in 2022 and the Dylan Thomas Prize in 2023, and longlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2023 (Wikipedia).
- Stella Cali, in PRISM international, called it "brilliantly crafted and fiercely vital" and "a stunning debut" (PRISM international).
- BookPage described it as a reclamation of female identity (BookPage).
About the poet
In 2013 Shire won the first Brunel University African Poetry Prize and became the first Young Poet Laureate for London. Her poetry was used in Beyoncé's visual albums Lemonade (2016) and Black Is King (2020), and in 2018 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (Wikipedia).
Where to read it
- In a library: WorldCat
Related pages
Sources
- Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
- Publishers Weekly · publishersweekly.com
- PN Review · pnreview.co.uk
- PRISM international · prismmagazine.ca
- BookPage · bookpage.com
- WorldCat · search.worldcat.org
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