Finding My Voice | A Journey Through Language, Identity, and the Power of Words
“I have my mother’s mouth and my father’s eyes. On my face they are still together.” — Warsan Shire
I want to tell you a story about how I met Warsan Shire and how she empowered me to own who I am through my writing.
My mother was born in England and raised in England and Guyana. My father was born and raised in Egypt. They met in Los Angeles, the City of Angels. I am the only child they had together.
At 2 years old, I learned to speak English and Arabic. My mother spoke to me in English, and my father communicated with me in Arabic. I must have had it down to a science—until I went to Egypt at 3 years old. On this trip, I was gone for months in the summer, visiting family with my father.
When I returned to the U.S., I only spoke and understood Arabic. My mother couldn’t communicate with me. I no longer understood anything she said. She cried for days. She panicked.
At three years old, I had to relearn English while maintaining my Arabic. My parents had to work together. My father and I had to collaborate. He translated what my mother said to me and translated to my mother what I would say to her. I’ve never forgotten the power of language—the distance it has and the love it brings.
My mother and father were the first in their families to marry outside their culture. Although their marriage did not last, as Warsan Shire wrote, “I have my mother’s mouth and my father’s eyes. On my face they are still together.”
Writing has saved my life tenfold. I started writing in journals at the age of 12. I wrote about the complexity of my emotions. I started with pain, love, and hope. I graduated with detailed experiences and identity and became my own best friend. Above is a picture of my journals stacked in chronological order. I took the photo in 2016, euphorically knowing it would be the cover of my first book.
Fast Forward…
On April 5, 2015, I noted a few intentions in my journal:
- Update my resume
- Attend more events in San Francisco
- Be kind to myself
- Seek a creative writing workshop with people of color
My writings are rooted in trauma and healing. At this point, I had only come across predominantly white writing spaces. I didn’t feel comfortable sharing intimate parts of myself with a community that couldn’t understand my otherness. Similar to wanting to find a therapist who is a person of color. I didn’t want to over-explain myself or my writing.
During this season, I found myself gravitating to Warsan Shire’s poetry. Her poem, “Be Small For Me” stood out to me. Her writing took me out of my isolation in primarily white work environments. I read her poetry and felt seen. Reading her words continues to be an affirmation of my intuition, strength, and perseverance.
Three days later…
On April 8, 2015, Warsan Shire posted on Twitter:
Few spots left on my online poetry course. 1 to 1 personalized workshops on healing and trauma.
She went on to share her email address. I wasn’t 100% sure it wasn’t a scam. And I couldn’t pass on this opportunity if it was a dream (I couldn’t imagine) come true. I wasn’t active on Twitter, and my profile was private. I didn’t know an encounter like this was possible. I immediately emailed the address provided to thank her for the influence of her writings on me. I asked about the cost of her online poetry course. I received a response informing me that all sessions are private and we could use video for our Skype workshops. The syllabus would be tailored to me, and the first session would start the following week, “but is flexible, creating a schedule that works for you.”
Course info:
- A 4-week course that includes;
- 1 weekly poetry assignment with feedback and critique
- 2 Skype video chats/ live workshops (one at the start of the course and one at the end)
- A personalized reading list based on your interests
- Advice on poetry as a profession and publishing
- Feedback and editing advice
The course cost £300 (British Pounds). I sent $463.27 US dollars through Paypal. I was embarrassed to tell anyone in case this wasn’t real. This was the first time I was investing in my writing financially, investing in my dream to write my first book with what little money I had. Years before the #tweetitintoexistance campaign, Twitter made my dream come true.
Warsan Shire is a Somali British writer and poet born in Nairobi, Kenya, and raised in London, England. She has written two chapbooks, Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth and Her Blue Body. She was awarded the inaugural Brunel International African Poetry Prize and served as the first Young Poet Laureate of London. She is the youngest member of the Royal Society of Literature and is included in the Penguin Modern Poets series. Shire wrote the poetry for the Peabody Award-winning visual album Lemonade and the Disney film Black Is King in collaboration with Beyoncé Knowles-Carter. She also wrote the short film Brave Girl Rising, highlighting the voices and faces of Somali girls in Africa’s largest refugee camp. Shire lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children. Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head is her full-length debut poetry collection, currently available on pre-order.
In May 2015, Warsan Shire and I had our first writing session over Skype. I’m fortunate this was not a #TinderSwindler, Twitter situation. This was legit. As we concluded our first session, she called me a “Boss Ass Bitch.” I was proud. I pushed myself more and more each time we had a writing session.
Warsan was flexible with my schedule, and I was flexible with hers. We had more than two Skype video calls. Our four-week course, which started in April 2015, extended through July 2016, when we had our last Skype call. We patiently navigated the health issues she discussed in a recent interview in The New Yorker.
She sent me her last feedback and editing advice on my writing in November 2016. She encouraged me to self-publish to control my body of work fully. I committed to a self-publisher in January 2017. By 2017, well-known people of color experienced a lot of rejection by the publishing industry for those of us interested in telling our stories through poetry. Warsan Shire, Rupi Kaur, and Nayirrah Waheed self-published their first body of work.
I am forever indebted to Warsan Shire for being gracious and for her honesty and time. She carried me through the intimacy of the writing process and held my words tenderly. She deconstructed my walls and my vulnerability. The experience was an inflection point in my life. Warsan talked to me like a friend I didn’t have. I was exposing a side of me I hadn’t shared with anyone. Shire brought out my creativity, honesty, and intimacy between myself and my words. Here I had set to search for a community and I found one in Warsan Shire. While in the writing process, I forgot our relationship had an expiration date.
I learned the power of:
- Investing in my writing process
- Being seen by a Muslim Somali British writer/poet born in Nairobi and raised in London who understood the complexity of my identity
- Working with someone secure in who they are and holding it at the forefront of their work
Through our work together, I created 99 pages of my heart. I only published a handful. I birthed my first book, I Write Letters In My Thoughts, in May 2017.
Photo credit: Darryl Barnes | Location: Oakland, CA
I Write Letters in my Thoughts is a synoptic view of one person’s journey through love, life, and ultimately towards liberation. My book is a testament to the power of storytelling as a historic healing method for communities often told to be quiet and patient. I Write Letters in my Thoughts, allows us to realize that we are enough and that enough is enough; suffering is not our destiny, love is not impossible, and freedom is what we make it.
Examples of my poetry include:
Interested in purchasing Warsan Shire’s new body of work, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head, and attending her FREE online poetry writing session on February 28, 2022?
“I think it’s really important for me knowing that I’m Black, knowing that I am African, knowing that I am Muslim as well, knowing that my parents were immigrants and refugees and really reclaiming their space and really making sure that that’s at the forefront of my work. It’s in everything that I write. It might not be explicit, but it’s in every single thing that I write, that this is my experience, this is who I am, the fabric of my existence. So, it’s going to be in almost all my work all the time. I think that’s necessary especially when we’re kind of blotted out and kind of trying to be etched out, so it’s very, very important that we continuously try to reclaim our space, our voices and our bodies.”
— Warsan Shire, Urbanologymag.com, July 2015
🇪🇬🥭🇬🇾 Name dipped in mango | | منى خليل | #iwritelettersinmythoughts | www.monakhalil.com | Instagram @iammonakhalil
