Promising poetry:
More hereKenyan-born Somali poet WARSAN SHIRE has been announced as the first ever winner of the Brunel University African Poetry Prize. The prize of £3,000 is funded by Brunel University, Commonwealth Writers and The Africa Centre.
Her poetry pamphlet, Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth, was published in 2011 by flipped eye. Her poems have appeared in Wasafiri, Magma and Poetry Review and in the Salt Book of Younger Poets (Salt, 2011). They have been translated into Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.
The judges praised Warsan’s poetry for its combination of substance, urgency, power and drama. Her work was described as, “…beautifully crafted, subtle and understated in its use of language and metaphor yet still able to evoke a strong sense of mood and place that touches the reader.”
