Jonathan Davidson reviews So At One With You – An Anthology of Modern Poetry in Somali
As the Introduction by the editors and the two essays at the end of So At One With You (by Xasan Daahir Ismaaciil ‘Weedhsame’ and Martin Orwin) point out, Somali poetry concerns itself with all aspects of contemporary life while continuing a tradition of writing highly crafted verse. Evidently, Somali audiences appreciate the quality of sound and expression as much as subject matter. Jaamac Kadiye Cilmi’s poem ‘The Speech of Our Language’ (translated by Maxamed Xasan ‘Alto’ and Sarah Maguire) clarifies this appreciation. Here are the opening stanzas:
Utterance without weight
Spoken with no emphasis
And all frivolous speech
Is the death of our language
Our speech is our heritage
The most intricate poetry
A song to make us dance
And a song to help us work
Having the Somali text alongside each translation allows some of the patterns of the poetry to be revealed. And the translations show an arresting range of metaphors being used in many of the poems. We probably can’t know exactly the import of the line ‘You understand peace is an independent female camel’ from Saado Cabdi Amarre’s poem ‘You Understand’ (translated by Maxamed Xasan ‘Alto’ and Sarah Maguire), but ‘When, like a male ostrich, | you take your adult strides, | ambitious…’ from Canab Guuleed’s poem ‘Indispensable’ (translated by Clare Pollard and Martin Orwin) tells us much.
The pleasures of the language used are many and various, but it is the subjects chosen by the poets that give this collection its weight. The last fifty years have not been easy for Somali people, and many of the poems both document national politics, for instance in Canab Guuleed’s ‘Searching for my Culture’, and demand change, for instance in Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf’s poem ‘The Writer’s Rights’. Several of the poems reference the ‘Deelley’, a chain of poems made over a number of months at the end of 1979 and start of 1980 addressing major political issues, as inspiration. Political discourse is part of the Somali poetic tradition. Poets are expected to raise issues, offer ideas and critique policies. Amran Maxamed Axmed’s poem ‘The Killing Ground’ (translated by Said Jama Hussein and Anna Selby) is an example. It finishes:
If we can’t stop them
Pressing lit matches to gas
Then what? At home
We lie awake in our beds
Should we be done then
With our planet, head out
To Mars, or beyond that
Waving a white banner
To a darkening sky?
This anthology balances important poems about public life with many on a more intimate scale: about love, in praise of midwives and, rather gloriously, against television (Axmed Shiikh Jaamac’s ‘Ugh! Television is Disgusting’). The whole makes for a very well published informative, moving and entertaining book.
– Jonathan Davidson
Jonathan Davidson is a reviewer, writer and poet living in the West Midlands.