Gaarriye

Who is Gaarriye?

Mohamed Hashi Dhamac, known by his pen name Gaarriye, was a leading Somali poet, linguist, and political activist born in Hargeisa in 1949 during the period of British Somaliland. A sharp and often provocative literary voice, he became a central figure of twentieth-century Somali poetry, celebrated for his technical mastery of alliterative verse and his willingness to use poetry as direct political commentary. In 1979 he launched the renowned "Deelley" poetic chain, a sequence of alliterative poems exchanged among Somalia's foremost poets, including Hadraawi, in coded criticism of the Siad Barre regime, a project that became a landmark of modern Somali oral literature. He was an active member of the Somali National Movement during the struggle against the Barre government, and after the outbreak of the Somali Civil War he composed "Hagarlaawe" ("The Charitable"), one of the best-known Somali poems addressing reconciliation and the search for peace among warring clans. Gaarriye also worked as a scholar of Somali linguistics and prosody, helping to formalize the study of the language's classical metrical system. He died in Hargeisa in September 2012, widely mourned as one of Somaliland's foremost cultural figures.

Sources: Wikipedia, "Gaariye" · Wikipedia, "Hadrawi" (cross-reference on the Deelley chain)