Warsan Shire
Our Men Do Not Belong to Us
Our Men Do Not Belong to Us is the opening noise of a poet who has already
gained a significant amount of praise for her poetry. Warsan Shire’s poems
are direct, but they are works of such delicate construction and layered
insight that one quickly realizes what seems “direct” is necessarily wholly
indirect, questioning, uncertain, and vulnerable. Her poems are about how
women deal with the violence of all kinds of exploitation, but they are
never didactic or simplistic. Shire fills her poems with the effects of her
complex sense of identity in transcultural Africa.
—Kwame Dawes
