The worldly and the unworldly in Jacayl Dhiig ma lagu Qoray by Maxamed Ibraahim Warsame ‘Hadraawi’

This paper considers the worldly and unworldly in the famous Somali poem Jacayl Dhiig Ma Lagu Qoray by Maxamed Ibraahim Warsame “Hadraawi.” The poem alternates between worldly and unwordly perspectives, each of which is a side in a dialectic questioning the nature of love. These different perspectives are reflected in references to time, people and landscape. A comparison is drawn with the way in which such references are presented in the poem Beledweyne, a more conventional love poem by Hadraawi, suggesting an intertextual relationship between the two poems.