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Somalia’s Poets Keep Hope Alive for Storytelling and for Peace

On Nov. 11, 2025, Somali poets performed at a cultural event in Mogadishu, Somalia, and continue reciting on local radio stations to sustain oral tradition.
Poets frame their work as preserving Somalia's oral-poetry tradition, using oral verse to promote security, good governance and community integration across the country.
The Somali Council of Poets reports 400 members including many in the diaspora, while Maki Haji Banaadir, deputy director of the National Theater, toured Somalia in 2003 with six other poets to preach reconciliation.
Despite limited ministry funding and National Theater support, Daud Aweis, Somalia's culture minister, said poets play `a vital role in Somali society` amid financial and security challenges.
Amid Somalia's fragile security environment, the federal government of Somalia controls little outside Mogadishu, with at least two semi-autonomous regions seeking secession; the National Theater has faced a deadly suicide bombing and now requires security checkpoints and intelligence notifications for access.

Insights by Ground AI