Xasan Daahir Ismaaciil (Weedhsame) with Christina Woolner

Xasan Daahir Ismaaciil (‘Weedhsame’) is a Somali poet currently based in Hargeysa, Somaliland. Mentored by the beloved late poet Maxamed Xaashi Dhamac ‘Gaarriye’, his work includes hundreds of poems and song lyrics on themes including politics, migration and love. He is widely considered one of the most influential poets of his generation. Trained as a mathematician, Weedhsame currently teaches Somali language and literature at the University of Hargeysa and works as a statistician for the Ministry of Education. Some of his work has been translated by the Poetry Translation Centre, and is available here: https://www.poetrytranslation.org/poets/xasan-daahir-weedhsame


Christina Woolner is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Department of Social Anthropology at Cambridge. Her research broadly explores how forms of popular art and practices of “voicing” are entangled in processes of sociopolitical change, especially in the wake of violence. For the last decade she has been studying the political and affective dynamics of love songs and political poetry in Hargeysa, Somaliland. Her first book, Love Songs in Motion: Voicing Intimacy in Somaliland recently came out with the University of Chicago Press. Information about the book, alongside supplemental audio-visual material, is available on the book’s companion website: www.lovesongs.christinawoolner.com.