Reviews

Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth by Warsan Shire

dinasamimi's review against another edition

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4.0

Intimate. I gravitate towards sparse, powerful language in verse. Shire lends voice to painful truths -- she's sitting beside you whispering things, and there's almost a violence to her words.

soforlorn's review against another edition

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4.0

“ To my daughter I will say,
‘when the men come, set yourself on fire’. ”
im sick to my stomach

nellusso's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

2.25

readingpisces's review against another edition

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4.0

Let me start of by saying that my relationship with poetry is kind of complicated, I love it when it isn’t too much relying on portraying of emotions but rather guiding the reader through a reading journey that inflicts emotions. That is exactly what it does. It’s a powerful collection of poetry on life in a war driven country and feminism. In my opinion everyone should read this. I loved it and I’m not saying this lightly as it is the first collection that inflicted auch emotions in me.

lbarsk's review against another edition

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3.0

Despite my rating, I would actually strongly recommend this work -- Shire's poems are beautiful and so, so powerful. The issue is more the fact that I definitely wasn't in the right headspace or time of my life to read them. I'll have to revisit these poems in the future and find more of Shire's work.

The one poem that's really stuck with me in the 24 hours since reading this is the one whose title was had to do with a deportation facility / immigration office and which had five stanzas. That was like a sucker punch. I think the other ones are like that, too, but I just couldn't emotionally connect with them because of where I'm at right now.

imissyou's review against another edition

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5.0

"Visit him on a Tuesday and he will describethe body of every woman he could not save.He’ll say she looked like your motherand you will feel a storm in your stomach."

OMFGGGGG

laurarevelesg's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

3.75

brittanysarus's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective fast-paced

5.0

jzw237's review against another edition

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4.0

Poetry on being a girl, a sister, a daughter, a mother, a friend, a lover, a human.

Poetry on being a woman.

africanbookaddict's review against another edition

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4.0

!!! https://africanbookaddict.com/2016/05/31/poetry-bone-teaching-my-mother-how-to-give-birth-ebooks/
...but I want more!
The first set of poems were pretty wild and had my heart racing. I like Warsan :)