Dear readers,
My published article on the young Somalian- British poet Warsan Shire is out in the latest printing of the magazine “Hjärnstorm” (A Swedish magazine that focuses on art and literature). You can read more about it here.
I have now written twice about Ms. Shire’s poetry, and have gotten very acquainted with her work. My latest article chronicles her career as a poet and her collaboration with the pop star Beyoncé for the 2016 visual album “Lemonade”. Ms. Shire’s poetry collection, “Teaching my mother how to give birth”, is brilliant. Check it out if you haven’t.
During my research for the article, I was fascinated by the poem “Dear moon”. I live next to a nature reservation, where they have a lot of live stock, including goats, ducks and cows. These things combined lead to me creating a retelling of the poem; one which is affectionate and more humorous. As follows:
“Dear Cow”
Dear Cow,
We blame you for tummy aches.
For the lactose that hurts.
We blame you for the pancakes
that make us fat.
We blame you for pollution.
We blame you for flies
that appear near you.
and yet we say we tamed you
You furry, unimaginable thing
That’s all for today. Take care/ Maaretta
I love poetry. I am going to look her up, especially since she collaborated with Beyonce on her Lemonade album. Learn something new every day.
I also recommend Morgan Parker! She’s an American poet; I found her collection “There are Beautiful things than Beyounce” to be the best thing published in 2017 🙂
And yes, I agree!
I love reading a good poem and I am glad you’ve been able to enjoy Mrs. Shire’s work so far! I like this poem and the love it shows for cows. I do agree they’ve become held as a symbol for everything wrong with the food industry, like chickens…
I’ve been lucky not only to read her stuff, but get to write about it for blogs and magazines as well 🙂
Thank you so much! I’m so happy you liked my poem ❤