Poetry highlights in honor of National Poetry Month!
Poet of the Day: Warsan Shire
Warsan Shire is a Somali poet and activist, born in Kenya, and raised in London. In 2014, she was named the first Young Poet Laureate for London and chosen as poet-in-residence for Queensland, Australia.

She is the author of the collections Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth (flipped eye, 2011), Her Blue Body (flipped eye, 2015), and Our Men Do Not Belong to Us (Slapering Hol Press and Poetry Foundation, 2015). Her poems have appeared in journals and magazines, including Poetry Review, Wasafiri, and Sable LitMag ; in the anthologies Salt Book of Younger Poets (2011), Long Journeys: African Migrants on the Road (2013), and Poems That Make Grown Women Cry (2016). Shire’s poetry was adapted for Beyoncé’s visual album Lemonade (2016). She was also the writer behind the short documentary film, Brave Girl Rising: A Refugee Story (2019). She is the poetry editor for Spook Magazine. 

Follow Warsan on Twitter @warsan_shire and Instagram @wu_shire .

Photo by Leyla Jeyte
This poet belongs in our classrooms because…
Warsan Shire writes the realities of trauma. She crafts beautiful and brutal portraits of what it means to journey through this world, which often feels like an unwelcome space. She writes the stories of women, refugees, and survivors. 

Through her writing, Shire gives voice to those too often silenced by fear, provides solace to those who feel unseen, and acts as a mentor to those seeking a creative outlet. Too often, our students feel silenced and unseen. They are uncertain about when and how they can express their own stories. Shire’s poetry is the perfect stepping stone for our students to process the many burdens they bear. 

Our students walk through this world and into our classrooms bearing the weight of unspoken tragedies, anxieties, and hardships. Yes, we must make our classrooms safe spaces, but we must also give students the tools to unpack and process their traumas. Poetry holds this power. The power of the personal, of poetry, cannot be overemphasized. It can heal. It can save.
A Poem by Warsan Shire
An Excerpt from "Home"

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

your neighbors running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
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.

no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it’s not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilet
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.

you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied
Other Poems or Pieces by Warsan Shire
Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth
Her Blue Body
" Ugly "
Brave Girl Rising , a short film 
Beyoncé’s visual album, Lemonade
Classroom Connections
In this lesson seed , students work with partners or small groups, then individually, to create a visual album. First, they will work with partners or small groups to create a short visual story of a Warsan Shire poem; next they create one using their own original work. Their original work should center around the same topics and themes as Shire’s. These stories should be shared with the class through presentations or a digital gallery walk.
Alison Daniels is an English teacher and instructional team leader at Thomas Viaduct Middle School in Hanover, Maryland. Against her own advice, she has recently decided to pursue National Board Certification. She has written for ALAN Picks and the Nerdy Book Club. She blogs at https://www.thehousethatblumebuilt.com/ and you can follow her on Twitter at @ms_adaniels .