Poetry, song and stories
Somali women's poetry: buraambur and the poets who broke through
Buraambur is the classical form of Somali poetry composed and performed by women. Because the professional memorisers who spread poems were all men, women's political poems rarely travelled. Radio, cassettes and live group shows changed that from the 1970s, carrying poets such as Xaliimo Cali Kurtin, Maryan Xaaji Xasan and Xabiiba Xaaji Aadan.
The women's form
The folklorist Zainab Mohamed Jama, writing in the journal Oral Tradition in 1994, lists four main styles of Somali classical poetry: gabay, geeraar, jiifto and buraambur. Following Andrzejewski and Lewis, gabay, geeraar and jiifto are seen as male forms and buraambur as the female one (Jama 1994, Silent Voices, Oral Tradition 9/1, p. 186). The University of Roma Tre's Somali archive describes buraambur as a genre composed only by Somali women (Roma Tre archive record).
Jama found the line less fixed in practice. Women from the northwest who took part in the nationalist struggle and the armed opposition of the 1980s composed in gabay and geeraar, while buraambur by a poet named Haynwade from the central regions was recited to her by Aden Artan in 1987 (Jama 1994, p. 186).
Why women's poems did not travel
Somali poems spread through memorisers who learned a poem from the poet and recited it elsewhere. Andrzejewski described how a hundred listeners could each pass a poem to a hundred more (Jama 1994, quoting Andrzejewski 1985, p. 37). Jama wrote that the memoriser was always a man, that male reciters saw reciting a woman's poem as demeaning, and that women's political poetry "tends to die with its author". She added that, after the 1972 script, collectors also wrote down mostly men's poems; women's work songs and lullabies were collected, their political verse was not.
Radio Mogadishu
From the 1970s Radio Mogadishu broadcast women's poems. Jama names Xaliimo Cali Kurtin (Halimo Ali Kurtin), whose long poem on the role of women said they gave everything for the flag yet "were still left in hunger", and Xaawo Aaje Maxamed, whose poem praised collective farms (Jama 1994, pp. 187 to 189). Under the military government, poems on the radio could not criticise the government.
Opposition radio and cassettes
Maryan Xaaji Xasan (Mariam Haji Hassan), a founding member of the SSDF in 1978, sent her first poem in 1979 to Radio Kulmis, the opposition station in Addis Ababa, under the name Araweelo Ararsame (Jama 1994, p. 190). In one poem she pictures the nation as Haybad, a she-camel rich with milk that "fell into the hands of ruthless people". Jama recorded her in Nairobi in August 1991.
Xabiiba Xaaji Aadan (Habiba H. Aden) recorded gabay and geeraar poems from 1988 to 1990, during the war in the north. Her cassettes spread through the Gulf states and reached America and Australia, and men listened to them as classical poetry (Jama 1994, pp. 193 to 194).
The Allah-Amin group
Allah-Amin ("those who trusted Allah") was a women's group working in SNM-held areas of the north in 1988 to 1990. Its members nursed the wounded, cooked and ran schools under trees for displaced families, and kept a cultural troupe. They set new words to old work songs and religious tunes; a solo singer chanted the new lines and the chorus answered with familiar ones, with clapping (Jama 1994, pp. 195 to 197).
Read more
Sources
- Jama 1994, Silent Voices, Oral Tradition 9/1, p. 186 · journal.oraltradition.org
- Roma Tre archive record · arcadia.sba.uniroma3.it
Toosoo!
Calankii is made by Toosoo, which works for one united, prosperous Somalia.
Can you help with Somali women's poetry: buraambur and the poets who broke through? Tell us what you can give.
I want to help with this
Where this matters
- Hargeysa (Hargeisa) and Woqooyi GalbeedWoqooyi Galbeed is the north-western region that holds Hargeisa (Hargeysa) and the port of Berbera, with about 1 to 1.45 million people.
- Burco (Burao) and TogdheerTogdheer is the northern region around Burco (Burao), with about 894,874 people including Buuhoodle.
- Gaalkacyo (Galkayo) and MudugMudug is a region of central Somalia with about 1.5 million people, split between Puntland in the north and Galmudug in the south.
Same era
- Australia18,401 people of Somali ancestry and 8,101 born in Somalia lived in Australia at the 2021 Census, more than half in Victoria. History, work, issues.
- Birmingham (Somali diaspora)About 17,000 to 21,600 Somalis live in Birmingham (Census 2021), mostly in Nechells, Newtown, Small Heath and Alum Rock. History, work, health and ties home.
- Bristol (Somali diaspora)9,167 people in Bristol identified as Somali or Somalilander in Census 2021, the city's largest minority group. Where they live, work, housing, leaders and ties home.
- Calgary, Alberta, Canada2,845 people of Somali origin lived in Calgary at the 2021 Census, plus 890 in Brooks. How they came, who serves them and what they face.
- Denmark (Somali diaspora)21,885 people of Somali origin lived in Denmark in 2026, half born there. Numbers, history, work, permit reviews, and ties home.
- DjiboutiAbout 13,900 refugees from Somalia live in Djibouti (Aug 2026): numbers since 1990, Ali Addeh, Holl-Holl, the 2017 refugee law, Arta 2000 and 2025 returns.
Keep reading
- Somali poetry (maanso): the forms, the poets and its place todaySomali poetry explained: gabay, geeraar, jiifto, buraambur and alliteration; poets from the Sayyid to Timacadde, Hadraawi and Gaarriye; the Deelley debate.
- Somali poetic metre (miisaan): how gabay, geeraar and jiifto are measuredHow Somali poetry is measured: long and short vowels, the miisaan of gabay, geeraar, jiifto and work songs, and the scholars who decoded it from 1976.
- Geeraar: the short-lined Somali poem once recited on horsebackThe geeraar metre of Somali poetry: its line, its fixed core, the particles that do not count, its history on horseback, and Faarax Nuur's poem.
- Somali work songs and children's verse: from the mortar to the watering wellSomali work songs (hees hawleed) and children's verse: mortar songs, watering songs, butter-churning songs and children's rhymes, and how their metres work.
- Somali music: from balwo and heello to Waaberi and the Mogadishu bandsA history of Somali music: balwo, heello and qaraami, Abdullahi Qarshe, Radio Hargeisa, Waaberi, Magool, the Mogadishu bands, the war years and the revival.
- Balwo: the short love song that began modern Somali musicBalwo, the Somali love song genre: Abdi Sinimo and the first balwo, the different accounts of where and when, the first balwo band in Borama, religious opposition, and the move to heello.