This presence of violence in every aspect of the poem reveals the pervasive harm that war and displacement and hatred cause, leaching into every facet of people's life and completely altering the way they perceive the world. Everything, even things that are not traditionally violent, are made so in the realm of the poem: breath is "bloody" and passports are never merely thrown away they are torn apart and sobbed over. "Home" describes violence unflinchingly and viscerally, beginning with the phrase "mouth of a shark" being used to describe the war-torn environments that often cause migrants to leave their homes. It is what drives the poem's subjects from their homes, it is what defines their journeys, and it is also what greets them when they arrive at the places that promised them refuge. Violence pervades "Home," from beginning to end. It is comprised of various scenes of discomfort and displacement, violence and movement leading to a loss of physical as well as spiritual home. "Home" is a poem about migration, about what happens to people when, uprooted from their homes, they find themselves unable to find acceptance in the places they fled to looking for safety. Displacement, migration, and diaspora are all words that define Warsan Shire's poem "Home," as well as much of her work.
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