Gaarriye (Maxamed Xaashi Dhamac)

Who was he?

Maxamed Xaashi Dhamac, known as Gaarriye, was a Somali poet and political activist. The African Studies Centre in Leiden calls him one of the most important Somali poets of the 20th century (ASC Leiden, Library Weekly: Gaarriye).

Early life and study

He was born in Hargeisa in 1949 and went to school at Sheikh (ASC Leiden). He studied at the Somali National University, then at Afgooye, and earned a degree in biology in 1974 (Wikipedia, Gaariye). He taught in secondary schools, then joined the Academy of Culture in Mogadishu and lectured on Somali literature at the National University (ASC Leiden).

The Deelley

In the years of military rule he began the Deelley, a chain of poems answering one another, each using words beginning with the letter "d". More than 40 poets took part (ASC Leiden). Hadraawi and Saado Ali Warsame were among them (Wikipedia; Wikipedia, Saado Ali Warsame). Wikipedia describes the chain as a response to the repression of the military government (Wikipedia).

The rules of Somali verse

Somali poems follow strict patterns of long and short sounds, but no one had written the rules down. In 1976 Gaarriye published the first analysis of the metre of Somali poetry, in the national newspaper Xiddigta Oktoobar (ASC Leiden). Wikipedia notes that the scholar Abdillahi Diiriye Guled found the same system at about the same time (Wikipedia). See Somali poetry.

Poems of reconciliation

He was a member of the Somali National Movement. After the civil war he wrote "Hagarlaawe" ("The Charitable"), one of the best-known Somali poems on reconciliation (Wikipedia). His collected poems, Hagarlaawe: diiwaanka maansooyinka, were published in Hargeisa in 2013 (ASC Leiden).

In his later years he worked with the British scholar Martin Orwin and the poet W. N. Herbert to translate his poems into English. They published Poems = Maansooyin in 2008 (ASC Leiden).

His death

He died in a hospital in Norway on 30 September 2012 (Wikipedia). A biography with his poems was published in Pisa that year, and Mahadho, a study of his life and work, in 2015 (ASC Leiden).

In short

A poet who described the rules of Somali poetic metre and wrote verse calling for peace.