Somali Poetry

Almost anyone who knows a thing about the Somali culture will tell you that Somalia is the nation of the great poets. Every society has their own way to express their emotions, sentiments, and describe the realities of their daily lives to make sense of their existence. These expressions varied depending on the experiences of each society, and depending on the degree of their relations with the world around them. Somalis in the old days were nomads who cherished their camels and flocks, and travelled the desert from one place to another in pursuit of good pastures and new adventures. In the meantime, they expressed their emotions and described the realities of the nomadic lives by arts of poetry.

Poetry meant everything for the nomad man or woman as a way to make sense of their experiences and lives. Almost everyone in the nomad culture tried their luck in poetry as it was deemed to be the best cultural expression. This poetry touched and described every aspect of their lives and experiences. There was poems to express love, bravery, rites, marriages, conflicts, wars, praise of kings, or Ougases, and Sultans, praise of tribes, praise of their camels, horses and other domestic animals. People were trained to be poets from very young age beginning by children songs with different rhythms and rhymes that eventually prepare them to transfer the knowledge of rhyme from songs to poems when they become adults.

Although most poems, transmitted orally, were mainly from men, women also had their place in the Somali poem esteemed society. However, gendered nature of the nomadic paternalistic society meant that women had to settle for less flamboyant type of Gabay (Poetry) that's called Buraanbur. The Buraanbur although never erected to the level of the real Gabay of men was, nevertheless, sweet soft type of Gabay which demonstrated the softness of women and feminist expressions of their lives and experiences, which were different from that of men. However, a lot of women also ventured into men's domain of Gabay and became famous for it.

Where the Gabay usually demonstrated bravery, love for wars and adventures, and love for women and animals, the Buraanbur expressed the happy celebrations of victories, marriages, solidarity with the fighters, encouragement of fighters, and love for children and Hello(equivalent of night clubbing). It was a sort of complimentary to the Gabay.

More articles on the importance of Gabay and Buraanbur will appear here in the future but for now I will leave you with an academic article on Somali Poetry by Joseph John and is entitled 'An Anthology of Somali Poetry'. The article is an academic review of the book written by B. W. Andrezejewski, a distinguished cushitic languages specialist.

Below is also a link to a beautiful poem from the famous Somali poet Abshir Bacadle. No translation in English is available at the moment for this poem (Gabay in Somali).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma2Zt-f6y8A