Home is safety, security and unity within a family. Yet home is something being taken away from people and families. Warsan Shire, Poet and activist wrote her experience and reaction to having to leave home. The poem is called “No One Leaves Home Unless Home Is The Mouth Of A Shark”. The poem “Home” by Warsan Shire is a poem that can truly touch a person’s heart. The poem is about a girl who feels nothing can replace the original feeling of home after it was taken away. The writer’s attitude of this poem contains her emotions with her devastation of having to leave home.
The experience the author went through really was a really close thing in her heart and made her write about it. This experience really changed the way she has been looking at the world and how it has refined her. Warsan Shire is trying to send the message that a person can feel so much pain when your whole life changes from one day to another. The theme is emotion.
Warsan Shire described many powerful emotions in the writing. The poem will leave the reader feeling guilty, angry, sad, joy and disgust. Different people may have slightly different understandings of what a poem is about because they are coming from different experiences of life and certain things a particular poem is addressing. No matter how the reader responds to the poem it will leave them feeling some sort of emotion. This poem is very special because it is happening all over the world and people are really going through this.
One in one-hundred people worldwide are taken away from their homes and yet we don’t really acknowledge it. The poem is a person’s story of reality. In my opinion, the most important part in the poem and really proves what the poem is about is when the author says “No one leaves home unless home chases you” Even though this is such a short sentence it has such strong words. This can leave the reader feeling pity wondering why a person would even say that. No one is going to leave their home unless home is chasing you away.
Home isn’t a place; it’s a feeling. This short sentence has such a strong impact. Why would home chase you? Home is supposed to be comfort. Another similar sentence she said in the poem is “You only leave home when home won’t let you stay.” The reader was able to feel her agony. “No One Leaves Home Unless Home Is The Mouth Of A Shark” by Warsan Shire, states that no one will leave home unless they really have to.
Warsan is repetitive and negative by saying “No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark”. In that statement Warsan Shire compares the dangers of her home now to the danger of the mouth of a shark and what damage it can do. Another way a person can understand this sentence is it was a peaceful home once and now it becomes a violent one, The author compares the refugees to the mouth of a shark. A shark can only feel with its teeth, so its jaws cause destruction anywhere it decides to clamp. Everyone is different and the meaning of this sentence would be put into different perspective. It can leave the reader feeling guilt, hope, graceful,rage.
When the writer said “Fire under feet hot blood in your belly it’s not something you ever thought of doing until the blade burnt threats into your neck”. The reader will possibly feel disgusted and Indignation. Leaving the reader why would someone say such horrible descriptive things. Warsan poem “Home” has descriptive words that makes it very easy to close your eyes and imagine the horrifying things the writer is saying. Another descriptive qoute she wrote is “Your neighbors running faster than you breath bloody in their throats, the boy you went to school with who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory is holding a gun bigger than his body” the reader was able picture everything the writer was describing. Warsan uses tone and imagery to convey her attitude and appearance to the readers.
The young poet uses imagery to get the readers involved in the situation, like putting ourselves in their shoes, how would we react. When a person is forced to leave home their whole life changes and you just have to learn to adjust. This sentence can also leave a person feeling pity. We feel sorrow and compassion because of the suffering and misfortunes of others. Some may realize they that they don’t have it as bad as other. It gives you a lesson that you need to be grateful for whatever you have.
This poem to me is very powerful and compelling. Warsan Shire the author of “No One Leaves Home Unless Home Is The Mouth Of A Shark” spoke out in an interview and said “I wrote the poem for them, for my family and for anyone who has experienced or lived around grief and trauma in that way.” In the interview she also stated “No one leaves home if the hurt that will come is greater than the hurt that they will leave behind” I also believe she wrote this poem to show people that they should be grateful because it could be worse. This peom can go in manys and and many emotions. As a reader I was able to feel her agony about the situation but at the same time makes me be thankful for the life I have. “No One Leaves Home Unless Home Is The Mouth Of A Shark” is popular around the world.
People are presenting signs at rallies. Also African asylum seekers in Jerusalem protested a proposed deportation policy with signs quoting the poem. The writers thoughts and theme of this poem is so much powerful when person can truly relate to it. Once in our lives we have has something taken away. Imagine having to leave your home and have to just start brand new with a new life. Even though we dont realize it because everyone is stuck in our own little lives people constantly being pulled away from a place they call home.
The writer was able to put her pain on paper and was able to describe her feelings. This poem had such an impact for me and I was able to relate because I have had my home get taken away. She expressed the fact that many cases people who run away from home most likely are left with no choice and are forced to escape to a better and safer situation. This poem allows us to be heart felt about the dangerous things that take place in some foreign countries and to stress the urgency of her reality.
