Somali literature

Due to the Somali people's passionate love for and facility with poetry, Somalia has also been called by, among others, the Canadian novelist and scholar Margaret Laurence, a "Nation of Poets" and a "Nation of Bards".[1] The 19th-century British explorer Richard Francis Burton, who visited the Somali Peninsula, similarly recounts in his book First Footsteps in East Africa how:

The country teems with poets... every man has his recognized position in literature as accurately defined as though he had been reviewed in a century of magazines - the fine ear of this people causing them to take the greatest pleasure in harmonious sounds and poetic expressions ... Every chief in the country must have a panegyric to be sung by his clan, and the great patronize light literature by keeping a poet.[2]

According to Canadian novelist and scholar Margaret Laurence, who originally coined the term "Nation of Poets" to describe the Somali Peninsular, the Eidagale clan were viewed as "the recognized experts in the composition of poetry" by their fellow Somali contemporaries:

Among the tribes, the Eidagalla are the recognized experts in the composition of poetry. One individual poet of the Eidagalla may be no better than a good poet of another tribe, but the Eidagalla appear to have more poets than any other tribe. “if you had a hundred Eidagalla men here,” Hersi Jama once told me, “And asked which of them could sing his own gabei ninety-five would be able to sing. The others would still be learning.”[3]

There is a crucial distinction between the different forms of Somali poetry. The forms differ by number of syllables in each verse of poem.[4]

Observing that "some say he was 'peerless' and his 'noble lines' .. are commonly quoted throughout the Somali peninsula", Samatar concurs with J. Spencer Trimingham's judgement that "Mahammad 'Abdille Hasan [Sayyid Abdullah Hassan] was a master of eloquence and excelled in the art of composing impromptu poems which so readily inspire and inflame the Somalis" -- although Samatar dissents on its "impromptu" nature.[8]

One of Hassan's well-known poems is Gaala Leged ("Defeat of the Infidels"):

English translation

To begin with, I had neglected poetry and had let it dry up

I had sent it west in the beginning of the spring rains.

But let me set forth what prevented me from sleeping last night

God's Blessing are more numerous than those growing trees.

I will remind you of the victory he gave us

Listen to me my council, for you are most dear to me

If the unwashed left handed one had died yesterday,

if I had cut his throat- may he taste hell in the grave itself

And the wild animals had eaten him, he and his ilk would deserve this

I would salute the hyena that would gorge itself on his flesh, as it's doing me a favor, it is dearer to me than any other animal of the wild.

If could I would reward it every day

That deformed one wasted a lot of my wealth

since he kept committing wrongs again and again

I knew all along that the hyena would devour him

It was their insincere refusal to acknowledge the truth that put them down and destroyed them

And made me attack their best man with a Dagger

If they had not become ungrateful, I would have not become enraged with them

I would have not lost my generosity and respect for them

I would have not have withheld anything from them, if they desired peace

But when they acted disdainfully, death marched straight at them

Elmi Boodhari differed from the poets of his generation in that he eschewed the popular theme of Tribal war and vengeance in Somali poetry, instead wholly focusing on love and composing all his poems for the woman he loved, Hodan Abdulle, which was seen as highly unconventional and scandalous at the time.

Author Mohamed Diiriye in his book Culture and Customs of Somalia, writes:

Among the poets of the past century, a poet who has gained the hearts of all Somalis in every district is Elmi Boodhari, many major poets such as Mohamed Abdallah Hassan and Abdi Gahayr, aroused resentment among some somalis, as they addressed diatribes against the members of a certain clan, or urged bloodletting; such poets are known as viper tongues, and the poems of such poets have been known to cause feuds and clan wars. But not so with Elmi Boodhari, his subject was romance and only that. While the poets of his day where addressing serious subjects such as war and feuds, Boodhari composed all of his poems for the lady of his affection Hodan, who was given in hand of marriage to a man much wealthier than him. Instead of getting literary kudos for his beautiful verse, Boodhari was made the object of public ridicule. Somali society had not been of course devoid of romance either in song or prose in any age, but to proclaim the object of ones love was frowned upon in the social mores of Somalis.[9]

A poem Elmi composed for Hodan:

She is altogether fair:

Her fine-shaped bones begin her excellence;

Magnificent of bearing, tall is she; A proud grace is her body’s greatest splendor; Yet she is gentle, womanly, soft of skin. Her gums’ dark gloss is like unto blackest ink; And a careless flickering of her slanted eyes Begets a light clear as the white spring moon. My heart leaps when I see her walking by, Infinite suppleness in her body’s sway. I often fear that some malicious djinn

May envy her beauty, and wish to do her harm.

— From “Qaraami” (Passion), as presented by Margaret Laurence in A Tree for Poverty.[10]

Ali Bu'ul (Cali Bucul) was a famous Somali poet and military leader from the 19th century renown for his geeraars. Geeraars are mostly used to praise the Horse , since horse stood central in a Somali pastoral life as a means of transportation and waging war. Equestrian poems was the hype before the early 20th centruy and many of the well known geeraars we know today come from Ali Bu'ul.[11][12] He coined the term Guulwade , which Somalis still use up to this day and especially during Somalia's revolutionary council years[13]

Here is an extract from one of his famous geeraar's Guulside (Victory-Bearer):

O my horse Guulside!

If his goodness

And his nature I try to describe,

He is a pool that refills itself

And I cannot plumb his secret.

I fall short.

Tell me, people, am I at fault?

The slopes of Mount Almis

And the Haraw ravine,

The camps on Mount Gureys,

He passes them in one evening.

Is he the cloud that brings rain in the night?

From the drought-bound desert,

When people despair of their flocks.

He drives the camels home.

Is he a noble warrior raiding enemy camps?

Grazing his field at night,

His whinnying keeps wild animals at bay,

— Ali Bu'ul (Cali Bucul), Guulside (Victory-Bearer!)

this particular poem alliterates echoing the horse's name.[14] Another snippet from his other famous geeraar Amaan-Faras , In Praise of My Horse goes as follows:[15]

From the seaside of Bulahar

to the corner of the Almis mountain

and Harawe of the pools

Hargeisa of the Gob trees

My horse reaches all that in one afternoon

Is it not like a scuddling cloud?

From it's pen

A huge roar is heard

Is it not like a lion leading a pride?

In the open plains

It makes the camels kneel down

Is it not like an exper camel-rustler?

It's mane and tail has white tufts on the top

Is it not as beautiful as a galool tree abloom?

— Ali Bu'ul (Cali Bucul), In Praise of My Horse

As the Somali Studies doyen Said Sheikh Samatar explains, a Somali poet is expected to play a role in supporting his clan, "to defend their rights in clan disputes, to defend their honor and prestige against the attacks of rival poets, to immortalize their fame and to act on the whole as a spokesman for them."[16] In short, a traditional poem is occasional verse composed to a specific end, with argumentative or persuasive elements, and having an historical context.

The veteran British anthropologist and Horn of Africa specialist I. M. Lewis recounts how in the latter days of the rule of General Muhammad Siad Barre, the political opposition often relied on oral poetry, either recorded on cassette tapes or broadcast through the Somali language service of the BBC, to voice their dissent. When the British considered closing the Somali language service down for financial reasons, a delegation of prominent Somali leaders met with the British, and argued that "much as they appreciated the ambassador personally, it would be better to close the British embassy rather than terminate the BBC broadcast!"[17]

The form of Somali verse is marked by hikaad (or alliteration) and an unwritten practice of meter.[18]