‘My favourite poems are like dear friends’

Award-winning poet Warsan Shire tells Ella Dove about new voices, collaborating with Beyoncé and her debut collection

Bless The Daughter Raised By A Voice In Her Head is your debut poetry collection and the blurb promises ‘each reader will come away changed’ – in what way?

[US sci-fi writer] Octavia E Butler once said, ‘All that you touch you change, all you change changes you.’ My favourite poems are like dear friends; I keep them close and I feel comforted, seen and understood. I hope I can do that for someone else with even one of these poems.

How important is it to you that your work provides a voice for refugees and the marginalised?

I came to the UK from Somalia as an infant refugee and the Somali civil war shaped the future. I’ll always use my voice to speak for my people – those who have no home or cannot go home. Too many people have been and will be displaced.

Your work captures a unique blend of huge subjects and everyday details that would often be so easy to overlook – have you always had this ability for observation, finding emotion in small detail? My first love was film, and so photography, cinematography and music are part of my writing process. I love writing in busy environments and observing the human commotion. During the pandemic I’ve had to replace that with reality TV, such as The Real Housewives Of New Jersey – Jennifer Aydin is fascinating.

Where do you seek inspiration?

Anything that moves me: cinema, conversations, music, art, photography, history, songs, design, nature, news, conspiracy, horror, romance, travel, grief, the perspective of children, architecture, colour, emotion, hysteria, birds, tattoos, fruit, grandmothers’ stories. Anything.

You were London’s first Young Poet Laureate aged 25 – when did you start writing poetry?

Very early – it was an escape. When I was eight and didn’t have friends, I wrote friends into existence. I created the world I wanted to live in. Later, adults would notice and encourage me to take writing seriously. Every day I’m so thankful for them.

Your words were featured on Beyoncé’s 2016 album Lemonade – how did that come about?

I happened to be in LA when Beyoncé invited me over. My first thought was, ‘Am I imagining this?’ I was over the moon, vibrating, ecstatic. It was surreal: I’d spent my adolescence singing along to Destiny’s Child. I connected from the first song she played, Pray You Catch Me, and I began writing that night. She is a beautiful person with a generous heart.

Bless The Daughter Raised By A Voice In Her Head (Vintage) by Warsan Shire is out now

‘WORKING WITH BEYONCÉ WAS SURREAL’