![]() ![]() Born in Kenya to parents from Somalia, Shire grew up in London, where she has always felt like an outsider, and embodies the kind of shape-shifting, culture-juggling spirit lurking in most people who can’t trace their ancestors to their country’s founding fathers, or whose ancestors look nothing like those fathers. Shire was the actual Young Poet Laureate of London in 2014, the city’s first. Of this new genre of poets, Warsan Shire, a twenty-six-year-old Somali-British woman, is a laureate. Verse that is then reblogged and retweeted by thousands of followers who see themselves reflected in the posts. Young poets are on Tumblr and Twitter, composing affecting and funny verse as short as a hundred and forty characters and also stretching much longer. They also may not be looking in the right places. It’s a rare poet who can write movingly about African migration to Europe and also tweet humorously about the VH1 reality show “Love & Hip-Hop: Atlanta.” Every generation of writers and readers has mourned the shrinking place of poetry in our lives, and they may not be wrong. ![]()
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