“No one leaves home unless / home is the mouth of a shark.”

“No one leaves home unless / home is the mouth of a shark.” - Warsan Shire

After showing Brave Girl Rising, the short film illustrating a young Somali’s life in Dadaab, renowned director Martha Adams began a question and answer session with the audience. I had to leave early and missed the depth of the discussion, but I remember that early-on Adams described the film as experimental because of its sectioning into five poems that artistically narrate Nasro’s life, achievements, and experiences. I had been familiar with the lauded Warsan Shire’s work before I realized she had written Brave Girl Rising. Adams’ comment surprised me because of how naturally storytelling, documentarian storytelling even, and poetry were interwoven in Shire’s work. She herself is a Somalian refugee, and many of her works address the refugee crisis, displacement, belonging, and cultural assumption. Shire is often considered “The Voice of the Refugee.” Yet her subjects, both in her written poetry and in the film, are not victims, martyrs, or addressing stereotypes, and they are not written for the benefit of anyone but the subjects themselves. The film addresses highly contentious sociopolitical crises, but Nasro’s story is not a PSA to the audience in the US or in Great Britain; rather, Shire highlights the warm-bloodedness in Nasro’s experience and the hope she holds to. This film could only have been a visual poem because of its universal humanity with its simultaneous emphasis on Nasro’s unique difficulty as a person and as a woman in her community. The viewer’s inevitable emotional response to her story leaves me hopeful (for what, I’m not exactly sure), but I wonder how much of the human experience really is universal. It’s difficult to imagine that our comings-of-age or even our femininity interact often, yet I feel a deep respect and admiration of Nasro, for her accomplishments in school, her resilience, and her radiance. It seems unlikely that this will have a tasteful conclusion when there are so many loose ends to be addressed around the world. Here is the link to the trailer if you have yet to watch the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EME3jObeJo