With her first full-length poetry collection Warsan Shire introduces us to a young girl who
in the absence of a nurturing guide makes her own stumbling way towards womanhood. Drawing
from her own life and the lives of loved ones as well as pop culture and news headlines Shire
finds vivid unique details in the experiences of refugees and immigrants mothers and
daughters Black women and teenage girls. In Shire's hands lives spring into fullness. This
is noisy life: full of music and weeping and surahs and sirens and birds. This is fragrant
life: full of blood and perfume and shisha smoke and jasmine and incense. This is polychrome
life: full of henna and moonlight and lipstick and turmeric and kohl--
