Dear Uncle, is everything you love foreign
or are you foreign to everything you love?
We're all animals and the body wants what
it wants, trust me, I know. The blonde said
Come in, love, take off your coat, what do
you want to drink?
Love is not haram but after years of fucking
women who are unable to pronounce your name,
you find yourself totally alone, in the foreign
food aisle, beside the turmeric and saffron,
remembering your mother's warm, dark hands,
prostrating in front of the halal meat, praying in a
language you haven't used in years.
Hello and welcome to Words That Burn, the podcast taking a closer look at poetry. This week’s poem is something that feels a little more direct and a little more personal to what I’m used to covering on the podcast. I read this poem in January and was immediately struck by the near cinematic quality to the imagery used by Warsan Shire in it. This week's poem is midnight in the foreign food aisle by the aforementioned poet.
Shire herself, can only be described as a poetry superstar. She became London's first young poet laureate and soon after that achievement was contacted by none other than Beyoncé to provide accompanying poetry for her Album Lemonade. Following that she collaborated with her again on the Disney film Black is King. (Maitland, 2022) To list out Shire's career as a achievements however, would be a great disservice to her writing.
Warsan Shire writes in a style that seems to connect directly with her reader's emotions, like a live wire. She is unflinching in the way she writes about both her own feelings and inner turmoils, as well as the relationships in her family and the world at large. It is this, combined with her commitment to doing things in her own way that have granted her such popularity.
That direct style and crystal clear observation of other people is evident in this week's poem. Shire has spoken openly of the way in which both her culture as a somali/ Kenyan poet and her youth in North West London has shaped her approach to the world. (Wassenberg, 2013)
The duality of that upbringing is littered with contrasts and Shire has spent much of her time observing the impact that moving from one culture to another can bring. She has spoken at length about the ways in which her own powers of observation have allowed her to create poetry. She is quoted as saying:
‘’ I've always been very observant; I'd rather listen than speak. It's overwhelming, the amount of detail I see in really mundane scenarios: strangers touching one another; someone arguing on the phone; a man falling asleep on the train. I'll fill in the gaps of the story myself.’’ (Wassenberg, 2013)
On occasion though there is no need for Shire to fill in that gap. The collection that this poem comes from is called Blessed Is The Daughter Raised by the Voice in Her Head, it was released just last year. Covered within it are a host of topics and themes but one that is heavily focused on is her own Somalian family and ancestry , particularly how the difficulties of Somali history have impacted Shire’s own family. (Okeowo, 2022) . Shire herself was born in Kenya in 1988 (Kuo,2017). Her parents had no choice but to flee Somalia after war had broken many years before. (Miles and Rasheed, 2012 ). As a result there is a massive displaced Somali diaspora around the world. (Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, 1992). This displacement and conflict has meant that Warsan writes constantly on the themes of persecution and refugees. Her work has become synonymous with events like this, with the most famous being Home, which features the line: no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark (Shire). This poem in particular sees a massive resurgence on social media any time a refugee crisis strikes the world. (Shire and Clayton, 2022)
Much of her work focuses on the impact such crises have in the moment, this one looks at the aftermath many years later.
Midnight In The Foreign Food Aisle is a poem that looks at the damage done by transitions from one way of life to another by the ways in which they often end up as a tangle of the two for many refugees.; clinging to an old life, whilst trying to embrace the new. That problem is laid out clearly in the first stanza:
Dear Uncle, is everything you love foreign
or are you foreign to everything you love?
We're all animals and the body wants what
it wants, trust me, I know. The blonde said
Come in, love, take off your coat, what do
you want to drink?
That opening question is the crux of the theme established before. In becoming an immigrant are we foreign only in the place we choose to settle or do we lose both places? Are we left untethered from two worlds? What follows is Shire’s biological rationale for love and lust; we're all animals. It’s clear that she’s supplying this logic to her uncle but why does he need that explained.
There is a definite sense of sympathy present in the stanza. The use of dear at the very beginning of the poem suggests that shire has some sort of care for this man. Then there is the qualifying statement of believe me I know. Shire is trying to explain to her uncle that we’ve all been there in the binds of love. That sense of sympathy will only increase in the second stanza but for now it is enough to know she cares. We may believe as readers that this poem has some element of fantasy or filling in the gaps to it but Warsan Shire has always been very clear, especially when it comes to her poems around family , that the truth, as vulnerable as it may leave her, is imperative. In an interview with Vogue, she stated:
‘’When it comes to my own experiences, I will speak about whatever’s necessary; I’ll be open. There are people who will call that brave, but it’s really just that for the longest time I felt desperate to read someone who had been through similar things to me. I have no interest in feeling shame at this point in my life.’’ (Maitland, 2022)
We could certainly say that it is not a particularly flattering portrait of her uncle, but its underlying message is more important. There is a particularly insightful quote from a profile done on her by the New Yorker that helps us understand what the poem is really all about:
‘’Some men, she noticed, tried to assimilate into British culture and avoid anything that reminded them of Somalia, but a sense of cultural alienation eventually caught up with them.’’ (Okeowo,2022)
This poem takes place in the literal moment that cultural alienation has caught up to her uncle. It’s about what happens when we transplant our lives and within that it encompasses so much more; racism, xenophobia, rage, loneliness.
Our hint at those deeper themes comes from the mention of a blonde woman. The descriptor blonde here is not one we would typically associate with western perceptions of Somalia, and so Shire is relying on her audience's preconceptions to distinguish between her uncle's culture and this woman. The woman speaking makes another fatal flaw; what do you want to drink? Her Uncle is a Muslim and so would more than likely not drink. This simple line works on multiple levels as it shows that her uncle is not understood by his adopted culture but also that her uncle must go against his original culture just to participate.
Shire actually spent a great deal of time with this uncle in particular, interviewing him frequently. (Okeowo,2022) and truth be told he had a very tragic life. The cumulative toll of the difficulties of such a life are made clear to us in the second stanza:
Love is not haram but after years of fucking
women who are unable to pronounce your name,
you find yourself totally alone, in the foreign
food aisle, beside the turmeric and saffron,
remembering your mother's warm, dark hands,
prostrating in front of the halal meat, praying in a
language you haven't used in years.
The message of the first stanza; that love is a natural thing is reinforced here. Love is not haram. Haram is an instant signifier to the audience of her uncle's belief once again. Actions deemed Haram in Islam are essentially a sin. (Al Jalad and University of Jordan , 2008)
In stating that Love is not Haram Shire has established two radically different viewpoints; Her uncle’s which struggles with a western society that does not view sin in the same terms as his own and Shire’s herself, she became part of British society much younger than him and aligns more closely to those values, freeing her from the dysmorphia plaguing the man of the poem.
In the following lines, her uncle’s logic for deeming love haram are tentatively laid bare:
after years of fucking
women who are unable to pronounce your name,
you find yourself totally alone.
Two things let us know that her uncle has not found true love in these women. Firstly there is the use of fucking, a coarser way to refer to the union devoid of sentiment or romance. The other clue is the microaggression of women being unable to pronounce his name. There is a lack of respect or even care when we don’t bother to pronounce people’s names. Studies have shown that the effect of repeated instances of such things can have detrimental effects on a person’s identity and esteem. (Adil, 2021) Her uncle has gone through this for decades. And now he finds himself alone in the foreign food aisle.
The foreign food aisle is a powerful piece of imagery from Shire. It is an instant visual reminder of what this man has left behind and by the very merit of it being labelled foreign reminds him how he is viewed. Shire deepens the image by listing the things available there; turmeric and saffron. Two things, which to western eyes might be exotic and rare but to those from places like Somalia, are as common as salt and pepper.
Her uncle is thrown backwards into memory of his mothers hands and halal meat, halal being the opposite of haram (Al Jalad and University of Jordan, 2008). It re-emphasizes just how trapped her uncle is between these two worlds. The poem ends on a truly tragic bittersweet note that really drives Shire’s point home; praying in a language you haven't used in years.
Her uncle's assimilation has been unsuccessful but now he can’t even go back to the life he left behind. He has become foreign in every sense of the word.
Midnight in the foreign food aisle is a brief but powerful poem from Warsan Shire that encompasses a great deal in so few lines. Firstly it is a wonderful investigation into what can be lost in emigration, the true cost of leaving a life behind. Secondly it subtly investigates the ways in which certain societies are less than welcoming to those who settle there.
Ultimately it is a vulnerable and nuanced portrait of a man who finds himself at odds with his own life. There are hints at trauma and misery in every line. Her entire debut collection is filled with such testaments; each one seeking to better understand her Somali heritage and her relatives that went through so much. This is a look at the silent torment people who made every effort to fit in can be left to. Warsan Shire's work on trauma and alienation is essential to understanding the plight of immigrants in the modern world. She perhaps puts it best herself:
Warsan Shire In Conversation With Tracy Clayton (Shire and Clayton,2022)
What did you think of the poem? I’d like to point out as always that this is my interpretation and I’d love to hear yours. You can get in touch with me in a few different ways. You can get in touch by email wordsthatburnpodcast@gmail.com. I'm on instagram @wordsthatburnpodcast and twitter @wordsthatburn in case you’d like bonus content. You can find the script for this episode, complete with citations and reference on Substack at the link in the description
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Works Cited
Adil, Zainab Shafqat. “Name mispronunciations leave lasting impact on individuals.” The Standard, 10 June 2021, https://standard.asl.org/18485/features/name-pronunciations-leave-lasting-impact-on-individuals/. Accessed 7 February 2023.
Al Jalad, Nader, and University of Jordan. “"The concepts of al-haram in the Arab-Muslim culture: a translational and lexicographical study" (PDF).” Language Design, 2008, pp. 77-86.
Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. “The Horn of Africa: Multiple Citizenship of the Ethnic Somalis.” Refworld, 1992, https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a81120.html. Accessed 7 February 2023.
Kuo, Lily. “This poem is now the rallying call for refugees: “No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.”” Quartz, 30 January 2017, https://qz.com/897871/warsan-shires-poem-captures-the-reality-of-life-for-refugees-no-one-leaves-home-unless-home-is-the-mouth-of-a-shark. Accessed 7 February 2023.
Maitland, Hayley. ““In The End, I Write For Myself”: Warsan Shire's Debut Poetry Collection Does Beyoncé Proud.” British Vogue, 16 March 2022, https://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/warsan-shire-interview. Accessed 5 February 2023.
Miles, Sedrick, and Kameelah Janan Rasheed. “To Be Vulnerable and Fearless: An Interview with Writer Warsan Shire | The Well&Often Reader.” Well&Often, 2012, http://wellandoftenpress.com/reader/to-be-vulnerable-and-fearless-an-interview-with-writer-warsan-shire/. Accessed 7 February 2023.
Okeowo, Alexis. “Warsan Shire's Portraits of Somalis in Exile.” The New Yorker, 14 February 2022, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/02/14/warsan-shires-portraits-of-somalis-in-exile. Accessed 7 February 2023.
Shire, Warsan. “"Home" by Warsan Shire.” Facing History, 3 December 2020, https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/home-warsan-shire. Accessed 7 February 2023.
Shire, Warsan, and Tracy Clayton. “Warsan Shire with Tracy Clayton : Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head.” YouTube, The Booksmith, 10 August 2022,
Accessed 7 February 2023.
Wassenberg, Anya. “An Interview With Beyonce's Favorite Poet, Warsan Shire.” OkayAfrica, 2013, https://www.okayafrica.com/african-writer-warsan-shire-interview/. Accessed 7 February 2023.