A timely and relevant collection that only makes these beautiful poems all the more important - I especially enjoyed "Assimilation." Highly recommended.

I often found myself re-reading the poems in this book to fully absorb their rich meanings. This is a complex, intelligent, heart-wrenching poetry collection that discusses serious social issues with great tact and poetical skill. I was moved to tears by Shire's writing.

This was my first of Warsan Shire and actually one of the first poetry books I have ever read. The poems are short but impactful and the author has such a beautiful way of expressing herself. I look forward to reading more by this incredible author. P

Absolutely beautiful. Everything Warsan Shire writes is visceral, stunning, and impactful, and I'll forever be in awe of what she creates. While it's important to go into a collection like this with necessary attention to trigger warnings, I think this is an amazing work of poetry that anyone can and should appreciate.

Warsan Shire gives us an amazing poetry collection with the main topics being a young girl dealing with her womanhood, family, trauma and belonging to a place. This was my introduction to her work and I cant wait to read more since I was mesmerized with what she did in this book, even if I do have favourites, every poem did something to me and i'm sure some of them will be stuck with me. I'll be re-reading this very slowly soon and take them as a treat since this was one of the most captivating and beautiful collections I've read. It's amazing what one can do with words, and it will always amaze me the talent that people like her have, I'll treasure this forever.

A few favourites:
- Home
- Backwards
- Grief has its blue hands in my hair
- Bless the moon
- Hooyo full of grace
- Drowning in dawson's creek
- My loneliness is killing me
- Extreme girlhood

"Mama, I made it/ out of your home/ alive, raised by/ the voices/ in my head."

I was beyond thrilled when I was able to read an advanced e-copy of Shire's new collection (many thanks to netgalley and publishers!) I had very high hopes for this book and while it didn't exactly meet my expectations entirely, I was still blown away by the poems that did draw me in with the wonderful magic of well woven prose, a strong message, and the demand for thoughts and feelings to form, be noticed, and paid attention to. It is not often that an author of any genre can approach such delicate topics in a way that works so splendidly that I easily forgot about the bits I didn't quite connect with, leaving me swooning over this collection as a whole.

Poetry is something we read and write because we are part of the human race, and Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head is a wonderful example of the passion the writer infuses into the words, and the passion of the reader as we soak them up and churn them over in our minds.

If you're looking for a beautiful collection with a strong message that will pull at your heart strings and pick at your brain until you lose yourself in thought and weave yourself between the prose this collection is one you're going to want to pick up asap!

I loved this completely. It is beautiful. And devastating. It has all of the feelings. I'm terrible at reviewing poetry. But I love how it makes you think and feel things. This collection is especially wonderful at doing those things. My favorite poem in the collection is "Home."

I definitely recommend this one.

Shire’s poems give a thematically broad and yet vulnerably succinct voice to the experiences of refugees, women and teens of African descent, and specifically Somali immigrants. Although she falters towards metaphorical cliches here and there, and the content can be overwhelmingly dark at times, ultimately I found the work to be stunning in its accessible, honest, and no-frills storytelling. Online review can be found on goodreads.

"Mama, I made it/ out of your home/ alive, raised by/ the voices/ in my head."
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Warsan Shire’s poetry collection, ‘Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth’ is one of my favourite collections so I was so excited when I got my hands on what is being described as her debut full-length collection. In the many years since we were last blessed with a collection from the Kenyan-born Somali poet, she’s collaborated with Beyoncé, and was named as the first Young Poet Laureate of London.
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Unfortunately for me, ‘Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head’ suffered from the weight of high expectations. I found it a little harder to connect with some of the poems and I felt as if the audience was deliberately being kept at a distance. However, the poems that did connect, left an indelible impression.
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Warsan’s imagery of the body and her insights into such topics as immigration, marriage, mental health, and female genital mutilation are extremely effective. Many of the poems I loved such as “Home” and “The Abubakr Girls Are Different” have appeared in slightly different iterations elsewhere so they were a little lacking in freshness.
However, this is definitely still worth a read.
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Warsan is no insta poet so don’t let the pithy aphorisms you’ve seen posted contextless on social media fool you. A lot of these poems will challenge you, but I just wish they inspired me too.

A ⭐️⭐️⭐️ read for me
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Thank you to @randomhouse via @netgalley for the advanced reader’s copy. 'Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head' will be available on March 1st, 2022.
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#warsanshire #blessthedaughterraisedbyavoiceinherhead #netgalley #poetry #poetsofinstagram #bookstagram #readincolor

This book was amazing poetry. It wasn’t too vulgar which is a preference of mine. My only wish is that their were page notes of definitions on the actual page so we knew what words are without going back and forth to the glossary but this book was worth it. I genuinely can’t explain this woman’s poetry in words. It reads very personal like a diary. The body, the mind, of a black women finding her place… making her place.

I usually read about one poetry book a year and this one was fantastic. I was interested in this poet as a "collaborator" with Beyonce on Lemonade, but her poetry goes deep. Poems touch on the experiences of being a refugee, sexual assault, and womanhood. A unique voice and a powerful poetry collection.

“Bless The Daughter Raised By The Voice In Her Head” (2022) is written by the multi-award-winning Somali-British author/poet Warsan Shire: who served as the first Young Poet Laurate of London where she was raised after resettlement. Shire lives in Los Angeles, California with her husband and two children.

Somalia is recognized for having the longest coastline on the African continent and is populated by over 16 million people. Somalia has been ravaged by Civil War (1991-2006) and the terror of lawlessness and violence against the people-- millions have fled due to these conditions combined with widespread government corruption, crime, famine, drought and flash flooding. Shire related the inhumane conditions from her childhood in these searingly profound and unforgettable poems. In the poem, ‘What Doesn’t Kill You’ Sire declares: “Mama I made it/out of your home/alive, raised by the voices/in my head.”

The scrutinizing process of immigration paperwork and outsider refugee status was certainly preferable to the taunting and heckling of those in her new country or finding a child’s body amongst the rubble from her war-ravaged homeland. 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. 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.
The Somalia Refugee Crisis has continued for nearly three decades. Shire tells us that “No one puts their children in a boat, unless the water is safer than the land.” While reading this startling collection, there was much to learn and truly of all things taken for granted in civilized society. ** With thanks to Penguin Random House via NetGalley for the DDC for the purpose of review.

I flew through this poetry collection and loved every minute of it. The language in this book is beautiful, which makes each poem individually hard hitting and collectively devastating. I really would like to read more by this author in the future.

Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head is a beautiful and powerful collection of contemporary poetry that explores womanhood, immigration, refugees, and other darker topics.

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Netgalley.)

"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 boy you went to school with, who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory, is holding a gun bigger than his body. You only leave home when home won’t let you stay."

"Mother says there are locked rooms inside all women. Sometimes, the men—they come with keys, and sometimes, the men—they come with hammers."

"At parties I point to my body and say Oh, this old thing? This is where men come to die."

Warsan Shire was born in Nairobi, raised in London, and currently resides in Los Angeles. Likely best known for collaborating with Beyoncé Knowles-Carter on Lemonade, she's also an award-winning poet. With BLESS THE DAUGHTER RAISED BY A VOICE IN HER HEAD - Shire's first full-length book of poetry - it's easy to see why.

The forty-nine poems collected within these pages are simply spectacular: cutting, perceptive, brimming with artistry and elegance. As beautiful as they are painful. Shire tackles a breadth of topics - migration, assimilation, domestic violence, child abuse, misogyny, xenophobia, bulimia, depression, Dawson's Creek, The Babysitter's Club, trichotillomania, Grace Jones, Angela Bassett - demonstrating how the political is always personal. With so many gems, it's hard to choose a favorite, but "Bless This House" is especially thrilling.

This was such a powerful and moving collection of poems by Warsan Shire. Dealing with themes such as womanhood, family, and the refugee experience, this collection was full of beautiful yet painful imagery. Some of the content in this was a bit difficult to read due to the subject matter, but it was still impactful all the same. My only critique would be that I felt some of the poems lacked a bit of context, so I wasn’t exactly sure if I was understanding the poem. However, it didn’t hinder my reading experience much. Definitely recommend.

Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head
By Warsan Shire

I am not generally a reader of poetry, but Shire’s first full length collection reverberates through me on a body level. It is filled with familiar themes of home countries, mothers and daughters, abuse, violence and resilience, presented in a narrative form unfamiliar to me, and I savored each poem. I found myself turning back the pages to reread the vivid imagery, so beautifully crafted. I wish the translations were on each page, instead of in the glossary at the end of the book, as my flow was constantly interrupted as I was flipping to the back of the book. I read this book without any knowledge about the author and now I’m a fan. I highly recommend this collection and look forward to immersing myself in more poetry.

My thanks to NetGalley for an Advanced Readers Copy of this book. All opinions are my own and not biased in any way.

This debut poetry collection was breathtaking, and I mean that literally. There were so many poems that made me exhale all the breath in my lungs. They were beautiful, thought provoking, heart breaking, and captivating. It has been quite a while since a poetry collection made me feel this way. I had to read through the entire collection twice, and some poems I read through multiple times, because I couldn't get them out of my head.

My favourite poems in the collection:
- Extreme Girlhood
- Home I and II
- Drowning in Dawson's Creek
- Filial Cannibalism
- Midnight in the Foreign Food Aisle
- My Father, The Astronaut
- Backwards
- Bless the Moon
- Bless this House
- Earth to Yosra
- Bless the Gun Tossed into a River

*Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for an e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

As a devoted fan of Warsan Shire, I was hoping this collection would be comparable with her past publications. I'm delighted to say that this is by far her best work yet!

"Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head" is Shire's first full-length poetry collection and picks up where her previous publications left off. Each poem is heavy with the weight of generational trauma and Shire confronts motherhood, womanhood, and her refugee upbringing with a sharp clarity that will take your breath away. With the inclusion of "Home" (Shire's well-known poem with the famous line "no one leaves home unless/home is the mouth of a shark"), this collection feels like a magnum opus, but it's just her debut.

An easy 5 stars and I'm excited to add a copy of this to my home library as soon as I can!

such descriptive poetry with so much meaning of womanhood, survival, and resistance.
so many beautiful lines that will stay with me forever.
cannot recommend this poetry collection enough.