I found an interesting page with some insight into the historic and modern role of poetry in Somalia:
The Somalis have been described as a nation of bards and indeed oral poetry plays a central role in all aspects of Somali life such as watering camels and political debate. The wide range of activities in which poetry is involved is reflected in the diversity of genres of poetry differing in their subject matter and stylistic characteristics. In recent decades musical accompaniment has played an increasingly important role in certain types of poetry, and theatre has become an important art form incorporating poetry.
[…]
The poetry of Salaan Arrabay, on the other hand, became an anti-war weapon. His best-known work, “O Kinsman, Stop the War,” was an appeal to end a long-standing feud between two rival sections of the Isaaq clan in northern Somalia. “Tradition has it,” says Samatar, “that the poet on his horse stood between the massed opposing forces and, with a voice charged with drama and emotion, chanted the better part of the day until the men, smitten with the force of his delivery, dropped their arms and embraced one another.”
[…]
Somalis have long debated the merits of a nomadic, pastoral existence versus those of a settled agricultural community. In this excerpt from a Somali poem, a nomad explains his decision to return to his herds after a brief try at farming:
It is said that one cannot pierce the sky to get rain for one’s garden, Nor can one drive the farm, as one drives animals, to the place Where the rain is falling. Worst of all, one cannot abandon one’s farm, even though barren, Because all one’s efforts are invested in it. The farmer, in counter argument, replies: A man with no fixed place in this world cannot claim one in heaven.
It seems to me that areas where it is very risky or costly to create items of any permanence that poetry and verse are the perfect form for tradition as well as laws. The breakdown of portable forms of expression and systematic erosion of the songs and spoken art seems to signal the last flicker from a society under pressure of dissolution or destruction. What a tragedy if we fail in helping preserve the knowledge and wisdom contained in the poems of Somalia.
