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The Literary Desk · Interview · Issue 12

Gaarriye (Maxamed Xaashi Dhamac) interviewed by James Byrne

Maxamed Xaashi Dhamac (Gaarriye) · James Byrne · David Harsent · Martin Orwin

James Byrne interviews the Somali poet Maxamed Xaashi Dhamac, known as Gaarriye, for The Wolf. A headnote places him in Hargeysa, where he was born in 1949 and still lives, and describes him as one of the most important Somali poets since the 1970s, writing on subjects from nuclear weapons to Nelson Mandela. He had just toured the UK on the World Poets' Tour run by the Poetry Translation Centre, and the same issue carried a translation feature on his work.

The questions begin with the tour itself. Gaarriye says it gave his poetry the international exposure it needed, and that it was the first time English audiences had heard his poems, and perhaps any poetry from Somalia. He praises David Harsent, who translated alongside Martin Orwin, for keeping the spirit of the poems. The conversation then turns to Somali oral tradition: the language was only written down in 1972, there are still no dictionaries, and poems travel by recitation, communities and cassettes. He contrasts readings before thousands at home with smaller halls in Ilkley and Cardiff, where the audience was mostly English academics, and notes that a London reading drew more than a hundred Somalis.

A central passage compares poets' responsibilities. In Somalia, he argues, audiences expect a poet to speak for them, so verse on a bottle or a flower would baffle listeners, whereas English poets seem to write chiefly for themselves. He describes his reading as mostly Arabic, with some Shakespeare, Keats and Eliot, and recalls playing Hamlet at school. Fame brings obligations: he must watch his conduct in public, and fake poets are quickly found out. What makes a poem memorable, he says, is the position the poet takes and the texture of the poem.

Byrne also asks about the long poem on Mandela, which Gaarriye says came without a plan and let him speak about humanity and about politics in his own country. He closes with the importance of reading to Somalis living in exile in Britain, and his view of London as a city of the world.

In Somalia the people have a high level of expectation from me as a poet

Gaarriye, The Wolf, issue 12

David was able to keep the spirit of my poems which is often what first goes missing in translation.

Gaarriye, The Wolf, issue 12
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