Bad Diaspora Poems
Winner of the Forward Prize for Best First CollectionSelect a format:
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Summary
Diaspora is witnessing a murder without getting blood on your shirt.
***WINNER OF THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST COLLECTION***
***FINALIST FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD***
***WINNER OF THE SKY ARTS AWARD FOR POETRY***
'Exceptional… Mehri is a truly transnational poet of the twenty-first century'
BERNARDINE EVARISTO, author of Girl, Woman, Other
'A once in a generation poet'
CALEB FEMI, author of Poor
The definition of diaspora is the dispersion of people from their original homeland. But what does it mean to write diaspora poetry? Momtaza Mehri's debut collection poses this question, taking us from Mogadishu to Naples, Lampedusa to London. Mixing her own family's experience with the stories of many others across nineteenth- and twentieth-century Somalia, Bad Diaspora Poems confronts the ambivalent nature of speaking for those who have been left behind.
We meet the poet, the translator, the refugee, the exile, and the diaspora kid attempting to transcend their clichéd angst. Told in lyric, prose and text messages, and taking place in living rooms and marketplaces, on buses and balconies, on transatlantic journeys and online, these are essential poems about our diasporic age.
***WINNER OF THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST COLLECTION***
***FINALIST FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD***
***WINNER OF THE SKY ARTS AWARD FOR POETRY***
'Exceptional… Mehri is a truly transnational poet of the twenty-first century'
BERNARDINE EVARISTO, author of Girl, Woman, Other
'A once in a generation poet'
CALEB FEMI, author of Poor
The definition of diaspora is the dispersion of people from their original homeland. But what does it mean to write diaspora poetry? Momtaza Mehri's debut collection poses this question, taking us from Mogadishu to Naples, Lampedusa to London. Mixing her own family's experience with the stories of many others across nineteenth- and twentieth-century Somalia, Bad Diaspora Poems confronts the ambivalent nature of speaking for those who have been left behind.
We meet the poet, the translator, the refugee, the exile, and the diaspora kid attempting to transcend their clichéd angst. Told in lyric, prose and text messages, and taking place in living rooms and marketplaces, on buses and balconies, on transatlantic journeys and online, these are essential poems about our diasporic age.
Reviews
An exceptional debut collection that reinvigorates ideas around diaspora, migration and home. Wide-ranging and ambitious, her poetry shimmers with erudition and linguistic exquisiteness, while also having an emotional heart. Drawing on global cultures, Mehri is a truly transnational poet of the twenty-first century whose words pulsate out into the world-at-large
Bernardine Evaristo, author of Girl, Woman, Other