I want to go home, but home is the mouth of a shark. Home is the barrel of a gun. No one would leave home unless home chased you to the shore. No one would leave home until home is a voice in your ear saying—leave, run now, I don't know what I've become

Warsan Shire's first full-length poetry collection Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head is a quietly sparkling book, woven with the through-lines of faith, family, womanhood, and reconciling the body's relationship to home. Shire offers a striking, introspective language around refugeehood and familial identity —

I can't get the refugee out of my body / I bolt whenever I get the chance

Whether this is your first encounter with Shire's poetry or this is a revisitation, this collection is a bold, yet meditative, gathering of work that has more to give with the more time you spend with it. Honest advice, though: start with the glossary at the end, then start at the beginning. The incorporation of Somali phrases will be more meaningful.