Name: Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth
Rating: 4.123595505617978 (89 reviews)
ISBN: 9781905233298

Warsan Shire

"Literary pointillism on a funked-out canvas."

Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth

“What is she hungry for? What can you fill her up with? What can you do, that you would not do for me?” & “Did you tell people that songs weren’t the same / as a warm body or a soft mouth? Miriam, / I’ve heard people using your songs as prayer, / begging god in falsetto. You were a city / exiled from skin, your mouth a burning church.”

shen

*when the men come, set yourself on fire.

Maya 

To my daughter I will say,

*when the men come, set yourself on fire.

Chourouk

Again fire, I found you. Thank you Warsan Shire and Mashaalah!

Matthew Royal

"I want to make love, but my hair smells of war and running and running. I want to lay down, but these countries are like uncles who touch you when you're young and asleep."

Intense erotic imagery transitions into the intense loss she has for her old life, old country, and family. She makes you feel her trauma like it's fresh, and how it ages with her.

Shareca

Warsan is absolutely beautiful and breathtaking. The way she uses words, the way her poetry is written is beautiful. I aspire to be a beautiful butterfly like her - in a lot of ways. She is absolutely one of the great poets I have read in the last decade. I would give this and all of the other pieces a read.

Trish

Last night in bed I swear I thought my body was on fire.

What a lovely and eloquent little book. The tone, subject matter, and emotion in this one really stands out among the numerous modern poetry collections.

Maggie Gordon

I am a sucker for zine-like books, and the cover for Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth is fantastic. It's a short book of often angry, challenging poems, and a great read for a white lady like myself who is trying to read outside of my comfort zone.

Nicki

Reread Aug 2021 

Whenever I get in a mood, I reach for this book and it helps to center me. It's very hard to explain but there is such a comfort I find in Warsan's words. 


 First Read Feb 2018 

To my daughter I will say,
'when the men come, set yourself on fire'.

Yea....

Lisa-Marie King

What a stunning, amazing, beautiful and harrowing collection of words, lives and memories. 

So many feeling flood through me reading this.

celeste

To my daughter I will say,
'when the men come, set yourself on fire'.

Rachel

Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth is a collection of poems about growing up a woman, being a refugee, love, and relationships. They're short and simply beautiful.

Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth

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