Prompted by Poet's Place Cafe

Balwo Somali Form of the Week

Aiy Ay Old Man, I stub my toe on your walker
Aiy Ay Old Man, where did the hard heat go?
Aiy Ay Old Man, I miss the sweat of past passion,
Oh, to feel the pain of urgency once more.
                                        ~~ Judi Van Gorder

Notes: ▼

"Form of the week: Balwo"  

The Balwo (Somali for "misfortune") created by Abdi Sinimo is a genre of poetry and music expressing unhappy love in short verse with "striking imagery". *Wikipedia. After reading several Balwo's, it appears the structure of the genre is between 2 and 5 lines, most commonly 4 lines. The content expresses pain or loss from some misfortune of life, followed by a transition to expressing loss of love.

Abdi Sinimo, a Somali of the Reer Nuur subclan of the Gadabuursi first employed this genre in 1945 while working as a lorry driver for the Djiboutian Port Authority. He was driving his truck and he had the "balwo" or misfortune of the truck breaking down in bush country. Though being a skilled mechanic, after a lot of time and effort, he was unable to repair it. Finally, he sat down and composed this:

         Balwoy! Hoy balwoy
         Waha i baleyey mooyaan
         Waha i baleyey babur
         Waha i baleyey berguba.

                   Balwoy! O Balwoy
                   I know not what made me suffer
                   It is a truck that made me suffer
                   She is berguba [a girl's name] who made me suffer

The elements of the Balwo are:
         1. Short, a poem in 2, 4 or 5 lines, the most common appears to be 4 lines.
         2. chant like rhythm which is at the discretion of the poet.
         3. a misfortune of circumstance is expressed
         4. followed by a loss or pain of a particular love.