The Uneasy Delight of Diaspora: Momtaza Mehri’s Bad Diaspora Poems

Abstract This article analyses the British-Somali poet Momtaza Mehri’s first collection Bad Diaspora Poems (2023). It demonstrates that in Bad Diaspora Poems, emotions transcend the personal realm; instead, emotions are examined in relation to their political potential. The article reveals how individual positionality determines who is allowed to express which feelings. It further argues that emotions are determined by culture and power inequalities. Consequently, not all humans have the right to express their emotions equally. Joy and delight are among those emotions often assumed to be only for the privileged, whereas migrants, refugees and diasporic subjects are expected mainly to feel sadness and despair, and maybe hope. Mehri deconstructs these notions while reflecting on diaspora, migration and colonial history, showing that, in the diaspora, positive feelings cannot easily be disconnected from negative ones. Therefore, I propose considering those positive feelings an ‘uneasy delight’.