The third stanza goes more into detail about the passage to wherever the speaker is going. Shire seems to be suggesting that violence destroys youth, forcing children to grow up far too quickly. This explores a loss of innocence, ushered in far too soon. The poem's first section describes whole cities emptying overnight and youth being corrupted by war and violence the speaker, settling into one solid identity for a moment, remembers a kiss with a boy who now holds a gun. Sometimes, this 'you' seems to be one singular person at others, the 'you' is many different stories, all splitting at the seams as the migrants go through different traumas at other times 'you' is the reader of the poem. The poem begins with a statement, at once a metaphor and a kind of argument: 'no one leaves home unless / home is the mouth of a shark.' It addresses one or many refugees as 'you,' describing refugees fleeing their homes through fragmented glimpses of different narratives. It argues that refugees truly do not have any choice but to flee, and that to send them back home or forbid them from taking refuge would be an extreme human rights violation.

It expresses a strong counterargument to common perceptions that refugees try to settle in countries like Europe and America to take advantage of their resources. Finally, Shire ends the poem where it begins-referring to 'home' as a being with the ability to speak and feel, and exploring the disjointedness that the character she is addressing experiences on her flight away from home. But the poem also emphasizes the fact that things are inevitably worse at home, where there is so much unspeakable violence. Once they/'you' arrive, however, the struggle is not over-the writer describes the experience of prejudice that haunts migrants once they arrive at their destinations. It then follows the migrants on their journeys, via land, sea, train, and other methods of transportation, to a new, safer place. It addresses one migrant specifically as 'you,' but takes fragments of different refugee stories and threads them together, beginning with the initial flight from home. I also read poetry - from Pablo Neruda to Warsan Shire - fairly regularly, and it keeps my sense of what words can do wide open and my sense of beauty awake.'Home' is a poem about the refugee experience.On envisioning her poems in ““To Be Vulnerable and Fearless: An Interview with Writer Warsan Shire” in The Well & Often Reader (November 2012).I can see it very clearly and then this overwhelming urge to write out best what I just saw comes over me… My poems come to me in images, like film.On writing about “home” in some of her works in ““To Be Vulnerable and Fearless: An Interview with Writer Warsan Shire” in The Well & Often Reader (November 2012).Maybe home is somewhere I’m going and never have been before. But I have started to understand what it feels like to belong, so I look forward to exploring different countries and seeing how fully I can feel at home in a place, that at the end of the day, isn’t where I came from. I have travelled around and found my body making more sense elsewhere. I live in London and have been here nearly my whole life, but it is a difficult city to connect to. On her name in ““To Be Vulnerable and Fearless: An Interview with Writer Warsan Shire” in The Well & Often Reader (November 2012).My name is indigenous to my country, it is not easy to pronounce, it takes effort to say correctly and I am absolutely in love with the sound of it and its meaning…

But then I grew up and understood the power of a name, the beauty that comes in understanding how your name has affected who you are. Growing up, I absolutely wanted a name that was easier to pronounce, more common, prettier. My parents named me after my father’s mother, my grandmother.

Warsan means “good news” and Shire means “to gather in one place”.

On what spurred her to write the poem “Conversations about Home (at the Deportation Centre)” in “Poets speak out for refugees: 'No one leaves home, unless home is the mouth of a shark'” in The Guardian (2015 Sep 16).

I wrote the poem for them, for my family and for anyone who has experienced or lived around grief and trauma in that way.

Warsan Shire FRSL (August 1, 1988) is a British writer, poet, editor and teacher, who was born to Somali parents in Kenya.

Home warsan shire claim