Ladan Osman

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Ladan Osman is a Somali-American writer and filmmaker who was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, but grew up in Columbus, Ohio. She is the winner of the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets and the 2020 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Poetry for her most recognizable works, The Kitchen-Dweller’s Testimony and Exiles of Eden. Her collection of works, like the given examples, are artistic responses to issues of racial politics, gender, and religion. Ladan Osman uses her own experiences as a Somali-American, a first-generation immigrant, and a woman to create her poetry and short stories. When Osman thinks about the memories from her childhood in Somalia, she remembers the smell of the salty ocean and her parents' home. Even though she has “loved and matured here in the States,” she has “cellular memory calls” to the …show more content…

This is because when she creates a new poem, she tries to figure out “who the work is for, what the work is for, what it is meant to do” (Osman, The Paris Review). In First Red Dress, the poem addresses the problem of girls being harassed at a young age, and Osman was taken aback when many young women related to the poem and recited lines from it to her. When explaining her purpose for the poem, she states how the poem reflects “that [women’s] bodies are not ours, that we can expect abuse” (Osman, Prachya Review). Even as an eight-year-old girl in the poem, the narrator’s brother tells the child that if she goes out in her first red dress, she will “get split like a watermelon” (Osman, The Kitchen-Dweller’s Testimony). Before many children are even able to comprehend the abuse they fear, they are taught to cover themselves and feel guilty for having a body. As a woman, Osman is able to put into words the fear that many young people experience and create a poem that women can connect with and feel represented

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