British Somali Poetry
This Black History Month
Poetry has long been a ‘homeland’ of sorts for Somali communities in the Horn of Africa: a space for debate, provocation and reflection, a site of shared cultural memory and a spiritual sanctuary. But what happens to this ‘homeland’ – and the sanctuary words provide – as Somalis move to new geographic, cultural and linguistic locales? Featuring a line-up of award-winning poets – including Samatar Elmi, Asmaa Jama, Ibrahim Hirsi, Safiya Mohamed and Zakariye– this event explores how diaspora Somali poets who compose in English are re-working an ancient oral tradition to imagine, reflect and sustain ideas of ‘home’ in the UK and beyond. Through conversation and performance, hear how poetry that grapples with themes of migration, racism, inter-generational trauma, love, friendship and belonging continues to provoke, inspire and inform Somali and English-speaking audiences. The event will be moderated by Dr. Christina Woolner.
Samatar Elmi is an award-winning writer, musician and educator. His debut pamphlet, The Epic of Cader Idris (Bloomsbury, 2024) includes the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize-winning poem ‘The Snails’ and his pamphlet Portrait of Colossus (flipped eye, 2021) was a PBS Choice.
Asmaa Jama is an award-winning poet, filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist based in Bristol. Asma’s poetry has been widely published in journals including The Poetry Review, Ambit, and Magma and in 2024 they won the Geoffrey Dearmer Poetry Prize, having been previously commended for the Brunel African Poetry prize.
Zakariye is a Birmingham-based poet, playwright and filmmaker. An alumnus of the Roundhouse Poetry Collective, his work has featured on BBC 4 and BBC iPlayer; he has performed at Westminster Abbey, Hay Festival and the Roundhouse Poetry Slam, where he won the 2023 audience vote. His debut poetry pamphlet, Pulling Faces, was published by Little Betty in November 2025 and has been longlisted for the Jhalak Poetry prize.
Safiya Mohamed is a Somali poet, spoken word artist and educator based in London, who fuses her mother tongue and English to bridge the gap between generations and cultures. Be it about life as a Somali,nature, spiritual warfare, hardships of black Muslims in the West and lower class neighbourhoods, her poetry hopes to be a source of understanding and solace for the world.
Ibrahim Hirsi is a writer, archivist, and editor at Journal Gobanimo. He is a co-founder of Koor Archives and is currently working on his first monograph, which explores the metre of southern Somali poetic forms. His work has been published in The Poetry Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, PBLJ, and the anthology Before Them, We (Flipped Eye, 2022).
Dr. Christina Woolner is a social anthropologist whose research explores the sociopolitical dynamics of popular music and poetry in Somaliland and across the Somali diaspora. She is the author of the award-winning book Love Songs in Motion: Voicing Intimacy in Somaliland, and her research has been published in journals including American Ethnologist, Ethnomusicology and Africa. She is currently Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Wilfrid Laurier University (Canada) and the Artistic Director of Kayd.
This event is co-organised by the Southbank Centre and Kayd Somali Arts & Culture as part of the London Literature Festival and Somali Week Festival.