On 20th October 2013, I had the pleasure to attend Somali Festival Week at Oxford House in London, where the legend Hadraawi was launching his new book ‘The Poet and the Man’. This book is a collection of his masterpiece poems translated and led by Bill Herbert and including the authors Said Jama Hussein, Mahamed Ali Hassan ‘Alto’ and Rashid Sheikh Abdillahi Ahmed ‘ Gadhweyne’
Hadraawi is arguably the most popular living Somali poet who was born in 1943, towards the end of the Second World War into a nomadic, camel-herding family of the district of Burao in Somaliland.
I would recommend each one of you to get a copy of the book. We are blessed that his collection of poetry been translated into English.
‘Let these few lines be as striking
as the stripes on an oryx
as visiable and as lovely –
I simply place them in plain view.’
“Daalcan” (Clarity), Hadraawi
Many thanks to Kayd Somali Art & Redsea Culture Foundation who are behind documenting the life and poetry of the greatest living Somali poet and thinker – Hadraawi.
If you would like further information about the book, or how to purchase one, please email info@kayd.org or/and please visit website http://www.kayd.org .
Me with Hadraawi and you can also read my poem which I wrote when I met him last year at the same event here | https://samrasaid.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/in-meeting-hadraawi/
Samra's Poems 