Poetry Translation Centre

Maxamed Xaashi Dhamac 'Gaarriye'

Maxamed Xaashi Dhamac 'Gaarriye' was born in Hargeysa in 1949 and lives there now. He attended school in Sheikh in Somaliland and then graduated in biology at the Somali National University following which he was a teacher for several years. As a keen poet and literary scholar also he later worked at the Academy of Culture in Mogadishu and then as a lecturer in Somali literature at National University. From the 1970s onwards he has been one of the most important Somali poets composing on a great variety of topics from nuclear weapons to Nelson Mandela. He was also a poet who was not afraid to engage in the politics of Somalia through his poetry and he was the initiator of one of the largest 'chain poems' 'Deelley' to which many poets contributed each one alliterating in 'd' hence the name of the chain. In addition to his poetry composition Gaarriye was the person who first articulated the metrical patterns of Somali poetry which he published in 1976 in a number of articles in the national newspaper of the time. This work was invaluable and a major intellectual achievement.

Martin Orwin

Poems we've translated

• Passing Cloud
• Kudu
• She
• Mandela
• A to Z
• Self-Misunderstood
• Seer
• Death of a Princess