Photographs of Hooyo (Harlesden, 1990–2000) – Summary and Analysis

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

The poem “Photographs of Hooyo (Harlesden, 1990–2000)” is a series of dated vignettes that together form a family album in verse. Each stanza is a frozen moment from a decade of the speaker’s mother’s life in the London neighbourhood of Harlesden.

1990: Hooyo emerges from her bedroom with tears in her eyes. Her sorrow is palpable in her colostrum (the first milk after childbirth), and her true name is hidden behind the smoke of uunsi (Somali incense). The gesture suggests a self-obscuring in a new country, a grief tied to displacement.

1993: Hooyo is in the kitchen, head bent in devotion before “her own personal Kaaba”—a makeshift sacred space. She repeats “ameen” feverishly, listening to cassette tapes sent from Somalia. The voice of Ayeeyo (the grandmother) recites duaa (prayers), linking the mother to heritage and faith.

1994: A lighter moment: Hooyo, wearing a banana-print diraac (a traditional Somali dress), sings her own raspy version of Tracy Chapman’s “Mountains O’ Things.” Olive oil shines in her Bantu knots; henna dries on her hands. Here the mother is vibrant, creative, and culturally hybrid.

1998: Hooyo stands under an apple tree in her aunt’s garden. Her hair is cut short; she wears a cream trouser suit and six small hoops in each ear. She looks up at the sky, overlined lips slightly open—a portrait of quiet contemplation or longing.

2000: The final image is sombre. Hooyo lies in bed, holding film negatives up to the light, squinting at “undeveloped ghosts”—the dead she has lost. She mumbles the name of the singer Magool under her breath. The line “war flaying Somalia alive” closes the poem, bringing the violence of the homeland into the present.

Key Events

1990: Hooyo’s sorrow is visible as she leaves her bedroom; her name is symbolically hidden in incense smoke.
1993: Hooyo prays intensely in the kitchen while listening to cassette tapes of her mother’s voice from Somalia.
1994: Hooyo wears a banana-print diraac and sings Tracy Chapman, blending Somali and Western cultures.
1998: Hooyo stands under an apple tree in a garden, looking upward—a moment of stillness.
2000: Hooyo examines undeveloped negatives in bed, haunted by memories of the dead and the war in Somalia.

Character Development

Hooyo: The mother figure is depicted across ten years through snapshots that accumulate complexity. In 1990 she is raw with grief; by 1993 she is devoutly connected to homeland; in 1994 she shows resilience and joy; in 1998 a calm, introspective elegance; in 2000 she is weighed down by loss and the continuing war. Hooyo becomes a symbol of the Somali diaspora woman—carrying sorrow, faith, memory, and the scars of conflict.

Ayeeyo (grandmother): Although only present as a voice on tape in 1993, Ayeeyo represents the ancestral link, the oral tradition, and the religious foundation passed to Hooyo.

The speaker/daughter: Never named but implied as the one who holds these photographs. Her perspective shapes the sequence, and her role as witness makes the collection of images a form of archival love.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Photography and Memory: The poem’s structure mimics a photo album, with each year a snapshot. The act of holding negatives up to light in 2000 suggests that memory is fragile and needs development to be seen.
Diaspora and Displacement: Harlesden, London, is the setting, but Somalia is ever-present—through cassettes, incense, the war. Hooyo exists between two places.
Motherhood and Sacrifice: The sorrow in colostrum (1990) ties physical motherhood to emotional pain. Hooyo’s prayers and nostalgic music show her labour to sustain family and identity.
Faith as Anchor: The “personal Kaaba” and the repeated “ameen” portray prayer as a portable sanctuary.
War and Trauma: The final line, “war flaying Somalia alive”, shows that the homeland’s violence is inescapable, intruding even into the bedroom in London.
Hybrid Identity: In 1994, Hooyo wears a diraac and sings Tracy Chapman, illustrating a blend of Somali tradition and Western pop culture.

Why This Chapter Matters

“Photographs of Hooyo” is a hinge chapter in the collection. It humanises the mother figure who appears throughout the book, offering a compressed biography through a decade of domestic images. The poem’s use of specific years anchors the diaspora experience in real time—the 1990s, when Somalia’s civil war escalated. By ending with “war flaying Somalia alive”, Shire insists that the trauma of the homeland is not left behind; it infiltrates daily life abroad. This chapter deepens the reader’s understanding of the speaker’s heritage and the emotional cost of migration. It also demonstrates Shire’s signature technique: blending the intimate with the political, the lyrical with the documentary.

Study Questions and Answers

How does the poem use the motif of photography to explore memory and loss?
The poem is structured as a series of dated “photographs,” each capturing a fragment of Hooyo’s life. In the 2000 stanza, Hooyo holds negatives up to the light, “squinting at undeveloped ghosts.” This image suggests that memory is latent, needing light and attention to become visible; the dead are present but not fully grasped. Photography here becomes a metaphor for the incomplete, fragile process of remembering a homeland and its losses.
What does the 1994 stanza reveal about Hooyo’s identity and resilience?
In 1994, Hooyo wears a banana-print diraac (a traditional Somali dress) and sings a raspy version of Tracy Chapman’s pop song “Mountains O’ Things.” Olive oil glistens in her Bantu knots, and henna dries on her hands. This stanza shows Hooyo actively blending her Somali heritage with Western culture. She is not merely sorrowful; she finds joy, creativity, and self-expression. The hybridity of the moment—traditional dress with American music—highlights the adaptive resilience of diaspora life.
The poem ends with “war flaying Somalia alive.” How does this line reframe the earlier domestic scenes?
The brutal image of war “flaying” Somalia (stripping its skin alive) violently intrudes on the quiet, domestic tone of the earlier stanzas. It forces the reader to re-evaluate everything before it: the mother’s tears in 1990, her fervent prayers in 1993, the nostalgia of cassettes. All are now understood as responses to an ongoing catastrophe. The line makes clear that the diaspora home is never separate from the homeland’s trauma; the war is a constant presence even in Harlesden.