*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 FELIX DENNIS PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST COLLECTION*
** AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4**
'Warsan Shire is an extraordinarily gifted poet whose profoundly moving poems so powerfully give voice to the unspoken' Bernardine Evaristo

'Vital, moving and courageous, this is a debut not to be missed' Guardian __________

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.

With her first full-length poetry collection, Warsan Shire introduces us to a girl who, in the absence of a nurturing guide, makes her own stumbling way toward womanhood. 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. These are noisy lives, full of music and weeping and surahs. These are fragrant lives, full of blood and perfume and jasmine. These are polychrome lives, full of moonlight and turmeric and kohl.

The long-awaited collection from one of our most exciting contemporary poets is a blessing, an incantatory celebration of survival. Each reader will come away changed.

'Warsan Shire electrifies... The beautifully crafted poems in this collection are fiercely tender gifts' Roxane Gay

Our Booksellers Say...

"Warsan Shire's poems stop me in my tracks again and again. These poems are songs of complicated praise, bearing witness to bodies, the violence of borders and what lies beyond them, and the complex love of families. 'When you wash your body you realise it is not your body. / And at the same time, it is the only body you have' – wow!"

Emily, Bookseller (Broad Street)

View all of Emily's recommendations