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 .

But included are some high voltage descriptions inspired by rape and immigration experience that have the power to remain.Born in 1988, Warsan has read her work extensively all over Britain and internationally - including recent readings in South Africa, Italy, Germany, Canada, North America and Kenya- and her début book, 'TEACHING MY MOTHER HOW TO GIVE BIRTH' (flipped eye), was published in 2011.

Each flipped eye limited edition object is one of just 200 lovingly hand-numbered, hardback copies, printed on uncoated paper from renewable sources and released on February 24 to pay quiet homage to the 23rd anniversary of Lauryn Hill’s seismic Grammy win for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head is a poetry collection about girlhood, womanhood, grief, trauma, immigration, family. She missed an opportunity to create a diverse and dynamic narrative, her message of resilience within the immigrant experience lost within the monotonous series of poetry. If someone from another planet wanted to know what it was like for a woman to survive on earth, they should read this book!Voglio abbracciare queste donne, voglio essere arrabbiata con loro, voglio sostenere le loro battaglie. Perhaps she did so out of respect for Victoria herself, wanting to honor her after her death outside of the lens of her murder, but part of understanding and respecting her story could be found in acknowledging the deep injustice that occurred.

Perhaps Shire is providing her reader with a visceral image of the continuous nature of intergenerational trauma, but at its culmination, the collection continues to lack a narrative which can carry its reader through these deeply harrowing stories. 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. Conversely, in “Victoria in Illiyin,” she embodies the voice of the community who has lost “our Victoria. Drawing from her own life and the lives of loved ones, as well as pop culture and news headlines, Shire finds vivid, unique details in the experiences of refugees and immigrants, mothers and daughters, Black women and teenage girls.With her first full-length, poetry collection, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice In Her Head, Warsan Shire electrifies. In doing so, she added another layer to the actual content and experience that was being shared within the poem. The poems are powerful and I'm always amazed by her capacity to root her poems in the experiences of the body, but I don't know, I expected more exploration. She also wrote the short film Brave Girl Rising highlighting the voices and faces of Somali girls in Africa's largest refugee camp. Albeit her technique seems the same: Shire is still drawing from her own life, as well as pop culture and news headlines.