Warsan Shire

In June 2018 Shire was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in its "40 Under 40" initiative.

As of 2016, Shire is working on her first full-length poetry collection, having put out a limited-release pamphlet called Her Blue Body in 2015. She serves as the poetry editor at SPOOK magazine and she teaches poetry workshops both globally and online for cathartic and aesthetic purposes.

Shire's poetry featured prominently in Beyoncé's 2016 feature-length film Lemonade. Knowles-Carter's interest in using Shire's work was sparked with Shire's piece "For Women Who Are Difficult to Love".

In 2014, Shire was also chosen as poet-in-residence of Queensland, Australia, liaising with the Aboriginal Centre for Performing Arts over a six-week period.

Shire has received various awards for her art. In April 2013, she was presented with Brunel University's inaugural African Poetry Prize, an award earmarked for poets who have yet to publish a full-length poetry collection. She was chosen from a shortlist of six candidates out of a total 655 entries.

In October 2013, Shire was selected from a shortlist of six as the first Young Poet Laureate for London. The honour is part of the London Legacy Development Corporation's Spoke programme, which focuses on promoting arts and culture in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and the surrounding area.

In 2011, she released Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth, a poetry pamphlet published by Flipped eye. Her full collection was released in 2016, also through flipped eye.

Shire has read her poetry in various artistic venues throughout the world, including in the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, North America, South Africa and Kenya. Her poems have been published in various literary publications, including Poetry Review, Magma and Wasafiri. Additionally, Shire's verse has been featured in the collections Salt Book of Younger Poets (Salt, 2011), Ten: The New Wave (Bloodaxe, 2014), and New Daughters of Africa (edited by Margaret Busby, 2019). Her poetry has also been translated into a number of languages, including Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Danish and Estonian.

Warsan Shire FRSL (born 1 August 1988) is a British writer, poet, editor and teacher, who was born to Somali parents in Kenya. In 2013 she was awarded the inaugural Brunel University African Poetry Prize, chosen from a shortlist of six candidates out of a total 655 entries. Her words "No one leaves home unless/home is the mouth of a shark", from the poem "Conversations about Home (at a deportation centre)", have been called "a rallying call for refugees and their advocates".

Born on 1 August 1988 in Kenya to Somali parents, Shire migrated with her family to the United Kingdom at the age of one. She has four siblings. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Creative Writing. As of 2015, she primarily resides in Los Angeles, California.