Explore the rich tradition of Somali poetry and the ways a new generation of British Somali writers are reshaping it in this special London Literature Festival event.
Poetry has occupied an important place within Somali cultural, social and political life for generations, acting as a means of preserving history, sharing knowledge, debating ideas and recording personal and collective experience.
This event looks at what happens to that tradition when communities are displaced by war and migration and when poets begin writing between different languages, countries and cultural identities.
Through poetry readings and conversation, British Somali writers explore how an ancient oral tradition is being transformed within the diaspora.
The event asks what it means to be Somali in Britain today and how poetry can provide a space in which questions of home, migration, race, language, trauma, love and belonging can be explored.
For Black History Month audiences, the event offers an opportunity to encounter a literary tradition that has played a central role in Somali and East African culture but is still not always widely represented within mainstream British literary programmes.
It also highlights the contribution British Somali poets are making to contemporary Black British literature, bringing together cultural inheritance and the experiences of growing up and living in the UK.
Rather than treating tradition as something fixed in the past, the event demonstrates how writers continue to adapt inherited forms and ideas to speak about contemporary lives.
A Celebration of British Somali Poetry takes place in the Purcell Room at the Southbank Centre on Saturday 24th October 2026 at 12:00pm, as part of the London Literature Festival.
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