“No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.” Pondering this line, I am reminded of the image of a Syrian toddler who had drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. I continue to wonder about the contradictions witnessed in the Ukraine humanitarian crisis and the persistence of racism permeating through it. The return of Shire’s voice can only be described as well-timed and urgent in a world of selective outrage and inaction.
The British Somali poet has been vocal about the lived experiences of refugees in a white world where Black bodies are seen merely as that: bodies. Her full poetry collection is titled “Bless the Daughter Raised by the Voice in Her Head”, her voice colouring the Black and white narrative that fails to recognise the humanity of refugees and meet them with empathy.
She previously released the successful anthology “Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth” in 2011, exploring similar themes of civil war, asylum-seeking and the burdens of Black girlhood. ‘Bless the Daughter Raised by the Voice in her Head’ completes the story by exploring the before-and-after pictures of war, focusing on themes of resilience, motherhood and navigating new terrain as refugees.
Shire’s commitment to truth-telling highlights the eternal displacement of Somalian refugees who must navigate a life of persistent loss and foreignness. She continues the story of fractured lives and psyches forever marred by the memories of escaping from home.
The value of whiteness
During the war between Ukraine and Russia, the world witnessed an unfamiliar empathy and outrage that seem to be reserved for white people in distress. The ugly head of racism reared its head as it was reported that Black African students and women were barred from using public transport in order to travel to safety. As the world observes this disaster unfolding, Black lives are not prioritised and the protection of Black women remains elusive in comparison to their white counterparts.
For asylum seekers who are Black or people of colour, the accusation of being leeches or lazy and not belonging rings loudly. In a poem titled “Assimilation”, Shire outlines the harrowing journey of leaving home to seek refuge and how the voyage is accompanied by the process of becoming non-human. She writes, “At 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.” This is an indictment of a society that continues the racist practice of ‘othering’, and considering any alternative to whiteness as non-human.
Shire’s voice is a reminder of the shortcomings of humanity and offers us a lens into the lives of refugees. The aftermath of removal is very rarely considered, with learning to exist in new surroundings adding to the pre-existing trauma of surviving a civil war. Shire explores the experiences of her family members whose connection to culture and home has been ruptured. She speaks to the strain of mothers witnessing children born into a wilderness, away from home and their regular traditions. In “Saint Hooyo,” she pens this alienation of mother and child in a manner that is similar to severing a person from their life. “I don’t recognise my own children, they speak and dream in the wrong language.”
And through it all, you’re still a Black Girl
“In Communion: The Female Search for Love”, she writes, “Raised with competitive, fault-finding mothers and fathers whom we can never really please, or in a world where we are the ‘perfect’ Daddy’s girl who fears losing his approval to the point where we stop eating, stop growing up because we see Daddy losing interest because we see he does not love women, we are uncertain about love. To keep his love, we cling to girlhood at all costs.” The collection confronts the burden of girlhood that does not immediately disappear because of the trespassing of geographical boundaries in the West. The insistence on conservatism is palpable and the value placed on innocence and purity persists.
Describing the morphing of a young girl’s body into womanhood, Shire expresses herself fully: “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.” The imagery of the blame placed on girls for transforming into womanhood and consequently being punished for it remains visceral. It explores the tensions between fathers and daughters as well as the older women who administer the discipline for the successful operation of patriarchy.
Living in London with her mother – who had remarried and had three other daughters – Shire is no stranger to the cumbersome role of being the firstborn female child who is adultified. Juggling the responsibility of being a secondary mother to her siblings and the mental effect of this, Shire had to negotiate her ‘plus size’ in contrast to the skinnier women in her family.
As always, her experiences are tied to the events which were happening in Somalia, where her eating disorder was also a site for politicisation. Shire suffered the indignity of being fat-shamed while factoring that bulimia was a mental illness considered ‘unconscionable’ considering the famine that engulfed her home country.
Shire’s testimony on displaced lives and Black womanhood is no longer shrouded by shame. In an interview for Vogue magazine, she shares, “When it comes to my own experiences, I will speak about whatever’s necessary; I’ll be open. There are people who will call that brave, but it’s really just that for the longest time I felt desperate to read [about] someone who had been through similar things to me. I have no interest in feeling shame at this point in my life.” Shire’s work is a devotion, a vocational practice of lending voices to those who no longer feel they have one.