Nimco Adan Hurre: A voice for peace and women’s rights
Nimco Adan Hurre, popularly known as Nimco Gabaydo, was born in 1969 in central Somaliland. In 1991 she started composing literature, singing songs about peace, and writing poems about how to reconcile communities and address the challenges faced by Somali women.
A close reading of Peace Is Your Home
Somali poets have always played an important role in bringing peace and ending conflict through their literary talents. At different times, they have composed poems about conflict in different areas, calling people to come together in peace using all kinds of songs, poems and other kinds of literature.
Meet the 2021 Home of Somali Poetry Poet of the Year
Ever since he was a child, Mursal has followed poetry to achieve insight and inspire others. At a tender age, Mursal Dahir loved poems, music, and literature. He would often listen to respected poets and elders. Unlike other children of his age, he developed a habit of talking to older people, attracted by their wise words and knowledge.
Somali female poet uses poetry to empower and inspire change
Raxma Xuseen Huriye fell in love with poetry at a young age; she would sing to herself about everything but was always shy of sharing her poems with other people except her family.
The art of self expression: Supporting Somali women to tell their own stories
UNDP is working with the Somali Arts Foundation to combine women’s poetry, photography and filmmaking in powerful online and offline exhibitions
2021 Somali Poetry Award winners
Poet of the Year, UNDP Woman Poet and Youth Poet judged by leading names in Somali literature from hundreds of entries.
UK Somali Arts and Cultural Festival returns after Covid disruption
The 13th anniversary of Somali Week Festival has just concluded in London, with a series of cultural events, poetry, literature and music.
Somali Poetry Awards launched to find best Somali poetry for 2021
Entries open today for the Somali Poetry Awards, an annual “Oscars” of Somali poetry organized by the Home of Somali Poetry initiative (Hoyga Maansada Soomaaliyeed) with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
A young village poet dreams of the capital
Abdirizak Bashir Ahmed known as “Hogol Caafi” started reciting poems when he was only seven years old. It all started one day when he argued with his parents over going to Hargeisa city. “My family lived in a small village near Ceerigaabo in the Sanaag region but I wanted to move to the capital, Hargeisa,” he told us in a recent interview. “They refused to let me travel and I was so upset that I responded with a poem."
Somali poetry in the digital age
“Whenever I had fights with other students in school, or even when we joked with each other, they never missed the opportunity to bring up Somalia in a negative way,” poet Zahra Abdihagi recalls the stereotypes she lived with growing up in Canada.