With her first full-length poetry collection, Warsan Shire, the celebrated collaborator on Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Black Is King introduces us to a young girl, who, in the absence of a nurturing guide, makes her own way toward womanhood.
Random House is thrilled to offer a special opportunity to learn directly from this award-winning poet at a Virtual Poetry Workshop on Tuesday, June 14 at 5:00 p.m. ET on Zoom, as Shire guides us through exercises to deepen our craft as poets.
Poetry can heal, comfort, transform and confront the past. In this workshop we will be exploring memory and “post-memory,” examining the relationships we have with our bodies and how we can carry trauma. Please bring something to write on, something to write with, and an object you feel represents you in some meaningful way.
Each ticket includes access to this live virtual workshop, as well as a physical copy of Shire’s collection, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head, to be shipped by our independent bookstore partner, Skylight Books. If you already have a copy of Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head, you also have the option to donate your copy of the book to prison libraries in the LA area.
What’s Included
Your $22.50 ticket includes:
- A copy of Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head
- Admission to this one-night-only workshop with Warsan Shire
- You also have the option to donate your copy of the book!
Event Details
About the Book
Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head
Poems
Warsan Shire
“The beautifully crafted poems in this collection are fiercely tender gifts.”—Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist
“Warsan Shire is our ultimate modern poet. . . . This is our James Baldwin.”—The New York Times Culture Desk
LONGLISTED FOR THE GRIFFIN POETRY PRIZE • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Vanity Fair, The Guardian, Publishers Weekly
Mama, I made it / out of your home / alive, raised by / the voices / in my head.
With her first full-length poetry collection, Warsan Shire introduces us to a young girl, who, in the absence of a nurturing guide, makes her own way toward womanhood. Drawing from her own life, 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. In Shire’s hands, lives spring into fullness. This is noisy life, full of music and weeping and surahs and sirens and birds. This is fragrant life, full of blood and perfume and shisha smoke and jasmine and incense. This is polychrome life, full of henna and moonlight and lipstick and turmeric and kohl. The long-awaited collection from one of our most exciting contemporary poets, this book is a blessing, an incantatory celebration of resilience and survival. Each reader will come away changed.