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Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stephone

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Speaker 1: Never told you a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: And welcome back to another edition of Feminists Around the World.

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Speaker 2: All the segments are running together. My titles are not

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Speaker 2: working out well in my head. Apparently, Annie, I was

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Speaker 2: sad that you missed the last Feminist Around the World

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Speaker 2: because we actually talked about an ecologist who saved Amazonian monkeys,

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Speaker 2: and I was like, I feel like this is something

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Speaker 2: Annie would have loved. Yeah, and we would have had

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Speaker 2: a long conversation about, which is why I ended up

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Speaker 2: being very short. Oh. Annie would have loved this moment.

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Speaker 2: I'll find another one. It's fine, it's fine. You know,

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Speaker 2: there's so many activists out there that save so many

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Speaker 2: different types of creatures, including humans. So we'll be talking

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Speaker 2: more and more. But we have another one today that

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Speaker 2: is also very fun because we have talked about our

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Speaker 2: love for poetry, yes, and today we're talking about an

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Speaker 2: already well known and accomplished poet. But she has already

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Speaker 2: published her amazing works. I think she started publishing in

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Speaker 2: like twenty twelve, if not earlier, and she was already

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Speaker 2: named Young Poet laureat of London, the youngest to ever

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Speaker 2: be named. It has been featured on numerous Beyonce projects,

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Speaker 2: But yeah, we wanted to take some time and praise

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Speaker 2: her works and advocacy as well. And we are talking

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Speaker 2: about Warsonshire and again she's pretty well known. She is

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Speaker 2: a Kenyan born Somali British poet who has been pushing

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Speaker 2: boundaries with her beautiful works. Again again with the Beyonce

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Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, cool, but we did want to talk

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Speaker 2: about her on our segment because she is obviously someone

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Speaker 2: who's doing some amazing stuff and you know how we

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Speaker 2: feel about giving flower to those who are still here

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Speaker 2: with us. That's what we're going to do. Rand Yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 2: So shai I was born in Kenya to her Somali parents.

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Speaker 2: She and her family moved to London when she was

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Speaker 2: one year old. From there, Shire would go on to

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Speaker 2: get her Bachelors of Arts and Creative Writing and today's

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Speaker 2: now one of the biggest poets in our modern history.

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Speaker 2: She gave an interview to Vogue in twenty twenty two

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Speaker 2: talking about her process and her works, and the interview

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Speaker 2: talked about the beginning of her poetry career and her influences,

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Speaker 2: including Jacob sam Morose, who was a famous poet, writer

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Speaker 2: and educator from London as well. She says in Vogue.

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Speaker 2: As a teenager, I lived in Northwest London with my

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Speaker 2: family and ended up joining a local youth club nearby.

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Speaker 2: It had zero funding, but an older Jamaican gentleman ran

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Speaker 2: it and he always kept us in the loop about

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Speaker 2: any free events. He invited me to a workshop one day,

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Speaker 2: and that's when I met Jacob. He absolutely changed my life.

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Speaker 2: There's no way I would be speaking to you right

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Speaker 2: now if I had never met him. At that point

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Speaker 2: I had thought about writing, but only in terms of novels.

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Speaker 2: Poetry just felt totally inaccessible. But Jacob had us write

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Speaker 2: a poem about experiences of gentrification in London. Right at

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Speaker 2: the end of the workshop. He told me to get

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Speaker 2: in touch if I had any other pieces for him

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Speaker 2: to read. So I did. I bombarded him with emails

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Speaker 2: with all sorts of crap I had written. That led

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Speaker 2: to me joining his Barbican Young Poet Scheme, where I

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Speaker 2: met Nei Parks, who published my first works through Flip Dye.

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Speaker 2: I owe him so much.

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Speaker 1: And she goes on talking about her writing as a

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Speaker 1: young teenage poet, I turned out all sorts of rubbish,

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Speaker 1: though I remember it being like, here's my emotions on paper.

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Speaker 1: I did write every day, but it felt less like

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Speaker 1: discipline more like a lifetime for me. It became sort

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Speaker 1: of therapeutic. You write what you know, and as a

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Speaker 1: teenager that meant my family and other somalies in our

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Speaker 1: community still reckoning with the war.

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Speaker 2: I feel like, though we did not have that experience

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Speaker 2: of war, you and I talked many times about as teenagers,

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Speaker 2: we sure did write a lot of woes and oh yes,

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Speaker 2: it was a lot of teenage inks. So this made

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Speaker 2: me feel a little better. Even though I'm sure her

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Speaker 2: poetry was way beyond our he's still was like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: I understand that. Yeah, if you ever dabbled any poetry

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Speaker 2: as a teen you know that you know this feeling. Yes,

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Speaker 2: I appreciate that. I was like, oh, this in there.

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Speaker 2: And her work has been recognized as a powerful look

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Speaker 2: into society, community, refugees, race and gender, and in an

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Speaker 2: interview for the Guardian, Shire spoke with award winning author

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Speaker 2: Bernardine Everisto for her book. In it, she talked about

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Speaker 2: her family and their influences in her writing, Shire says,

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Speaker 2: my mom has always been this natural feminist, even though

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Speaker 2: she spent her life as a housewife and didn't really

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Speaker 2: get to go to school, she always relished seeing me

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Speaker 2: be free. My family is a Muslim family, so at

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Speaker 2: times when I would be told, hey, you need to

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Speaker 2: wear her job, it would be my mom who'd be like,

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Speaker 2: She'll do what she wants to. So that just made

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Speaker 2: me feel formidable. My dad's a writer and he was

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Speaker 2: the reason why we had to leave Somalia. He was

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Speaker 2: writing this book about the corruption in the Somali government.

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Speaker 2: There were threats and intimidation and ultimately we had to

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Speaker 2: leave just before the war out. He was the first

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Speaker 2: person that introduced me to the idea of being afrocentric,

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Speaker 2: pan Africanism and the history of Somalia. He made me

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Speaker 2: feel really proud to be black from a very young age,

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Speaker 2: and he also put in me the importance of writing

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Speaker 2: and sharing your stories. So that mixed with growing up

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Speaker 2: with a backtop of a civil war and constantly looking

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Speaker 2: after and meeting traumaki'sed family that had just come from war,

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Speaker 2: all of that came together to create in me this

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Speaker 2: urgency to write.

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Speaker 1: Right and her work has been an influence for so many,

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Speaker 1: including Beyonce. In twenty sixteen, Beyonce collaborated with Schier for

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Speaker 1: her record breaking album Lemonade. Though she had already made

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Speaker 1: a name for herself with her works and words, her

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Speaker 1: works for the album only continued to expand her popularity.

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Speaker 1: Here's what she had to say to Everiso about being

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Speaker 1: contacted by Beyonce. So the Beyonce thing happened very randomly. Honestly,

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Speaker 1: I opened up my email and there who was one

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Speaker 1: from Parkwood, which is Beyonce's company. I thought somebody was

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Speaker 1: pranking me, but it turned out to be actually them.

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Speaker 1: They thought I was in London, and I said, actually, coincidentally,

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Speaker 1: I happened to be in la right now. So it

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Speaker 1: all happened very quickly. I woke up that morning and

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Speaker 1: that afternoon I was sitting with Beyonce listening to the

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Speaker 1: album Lemonade. I grew up listening to Destiny's Child and Beyonce,

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Speaker 1: so it was very surreal. I was very starstruck. I thought,

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Speaker 1: finally the mental health issue that my mama has always

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Speaker 1: talked about on my dad's side of the family had

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Speaker 1: kicked in, And what a beautiful psychosis. This is of

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Speaker 1: all the ways to lose my mind, this is a

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Speaker 1: great one. And then it turned out to be real.

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Speaker 1: It was a really beautiful experience in that she made

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Speaker 1: me feel just safe and special. She was very very

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Speaker 1: kind to me, and she's really sweet. She sent me

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Speaker 1: flowers after the bursts of both of my children. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: then I just went back to writing. I don't really

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Speaker 1: think about it much. That's amazing. After working with Beyonce,

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Speaker 1: Shires stepped out of the limelight and just continued her

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Speaker 1: as she said. In twenty twenty two, she released her

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Speaker 1: latest book of poems, Blessed the Daughter Raised by a

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Speaker 1: Voice in her Head poems.

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Speaker 2: Right, she actually, yeah, she kind of stepped out. No

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Speaker 2: one really heard from her. She didn't publish much, which

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Speaker 2: is amazing. Most people would have been like, boom, I'm

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Speaker 2: going to cash in again. She was already well known

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Speaker 2: and noted for her work, so a maybe she was

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Speaker 2: used to it be a lot of people, a lot

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Speaker 2: of people who worked with or talk about her being

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Speaker 2: really gracious and understanding in it and not allowing things

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Speaker 2: like this to go to her head. And yeah, she

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Speaker 2: kind of kind of lived that in that she really

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Speaker 2: did not necessarily care to be a note for hers

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Speaker 2: and like she didn't ride that way. She's just like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: that happened next yeah, while most of us would be

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Speaker 2: like I like I would make a T shirt probably,

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Speaker 2: you know. And of course, with all of her incredible works,

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Speaker 2: she has earned many awards and acolades, including the Young

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Speaker 2: Poet Laureate of London, which we mentioned before, but also

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Speaker 2: in twenty thirteen she earned a Brunell's University's first African

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Speaker 2: Poetry Prize, was a Poet in Residence of Queensland, Australia,

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Speaker 2: was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in

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Speaker 2: twenty eighteen. And then her books, which I think she's

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Speaker 2: published about three or four, have been on different lists,

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Speaker 2: the short lists for fellows and of recognition for her

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Speaker 2: amazing work. And with that, we're going to leave you

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Speaker 2: with a bit of her works, and there's many. You

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Speaker 2: should definitely go look at her books. I think she

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Speaker 2: actually did a whole audio book of our works and

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Speaker 2: think I believe she's the one that's recording it, which

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Speaker 2: we love to hear. But here's a little piece of

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Speaker 2: our work, The Year of letting Go, of understanding loss,

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Speaker 2: grace of the word no, and also being able to

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Speaker 2: say you are not kind. The year of humanity humility,

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Speaker 2: when the whole world couldn't get out of bed. Everyone

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Speaker 2: I've met this year says the same thing. Are easy

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Speaker 2: to be around? How do you do that? The year

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Speaker 2: I broke open and dug out all the rot with

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Speaker 2: own hands. The year I learned small talk and how

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Speaker 2: to smile as strangers. The year I understood that I

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Speaker 2: am my best when I reach out and ask, do

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Speaker 2: you want to be my friend? The year of sugar everywhere, softness, sweetness, honey, honey.

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Speaker 2: The year of being alone and learning how much I

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Speaker 2: like it. The year of hugging people I don't know

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Speaker 2: because I want to know them. The year I made

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Speaker 2: peace and love right here.

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Speaker 1: That's so good, that's beautiful, and I relate. I'm like, yeah, yes,

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Speaker 1: it is unbelatable, it really is. Oh. We do love

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Speaker 1: poetry over here on spinty, so it's always a delight

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Speaker 1: when we get to read some, even though it's not

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Speaker 1: our expertise. Our teenage sells perhaps were not meant to

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Speaker 1: be poets.

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Speaker 2: Well we were not. No, I leave those won.

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Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I feel like I say this every time.

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Speaker 1: But next time I go home, I am going to

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Speaker 1: find my book poetry and I will read one on

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Speaker 1: here and it will be hilarious for everyone involved.

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Speaker 2: Oh goodness.

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Speaker 1: But the problem is you won't see all the butterflies

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Speaker 1: on the side.

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Speaker 2: I didn't draw. I knew better, I knew my.

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Speaker 1: I'm smart, you knew your limits. Oh well, all right, Well,

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Speaker 1: in the meantime, we will be obviously as always, watching

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Speaker 1: to see what happens next in this story. I'm sure

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Speaker 1: we'll have an update. But in the meantime, if there's

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Speaker 1: anything we missed, or if there's anyone you think we

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Speaker 1: should talk about in this segment, you can contact us.

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Speaker 1: You can email as a Stepanie Momstuff at heeartmedia dot com.

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Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter at mom step podcast,

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Speaker 1: or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff. I've never told you.

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Speaker 1: We have a tea public store and we have a book.

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Speaker 1: There's no poetry in it, I don't think, but.

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Speaker 2: Hey, you can get it racking my brain now.

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Speaker 1: Nevertheless us Stuff you should read books dot com or

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Speaker 1: wherever you get your books or audio books. Thanks as

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Speaker 1: always to our super producer, Christina, our executive producer Maya

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Speaker 1: and our contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you

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Speaker 1: for listening. Stefan never told you the production of by

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For more podcast from my Heart Radio, you

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Speaker 1: can check out the heart radio app, Apple Podcast wherever

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Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows,