Bless the Daugher is a collection of a more mature author, the poems are connected through themes and characters, the poems seem more thought out.

We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Many of Shire’s poems were written in memory of her “Hooyo” (mother) and follow a multitude of blessings and gratitude: Bless The School For Girls – Bless The Real Housewife – Bless Your Ugly Daughter – Bless The Ghost - Bless The Blood – Bless Our CCTV Star - Bless The Sharmuto – Bless The Moon – Bless This House. Shire introduced readers to her native language (with translations) and to the prayers and customs of her Muslim faith that gave her the strength to endure. To say Warsan Shire’s first full-length poetry collection is ‘highly anticipated’ is an understatement.

The assonance of ‘veil’ and ‘il’ (the evil eye in Somali culture) is no coincidence, this is a demonstration of Shire’s technical agility that renders the narrative of this assemblage alive across all four sections. 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. I have loved Shire's work throughout my 20s and now as I have entered my 30s, I feel so completely blown away by how timeless she has made herself.

Also, shoutout to the years I spent in Somalia myself; the amount of references and subtleties that wouldn't resonate with me otherwise is finally making me grateful for it. Conversely, in “Victoria in Illiyin,” she embodies the voice of the community who has lost “our Victoria.

You think you don't recognize the poet's name but most of the words in Beyonce's Lemonade were penned by Warsan Shire. This to say that I thought some of these poems were striking and memorable (particularly the one on Victoria Climbie), whereas others - whilst including some great imagery and writing - didn't leave much of an impression. She also illustrates to me why I love when people bring their dialect, their culture, and their community to the forefront of their work: it goes hard! 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. Shire’s strikingly beautiful imagery leverages the specificity of her own womanhood, love life, tussles with mental health, grief, family history, and stories from the Somali diaspora, to make them reverberate universally.