The considerations on the translation of Swahili poetry which are developed in this article originate from a work (carried out with Roberto Gaudioso) devoted to the Italian translation of selected verses by two contemporary poets, Euphrase Kezilahabi and Abdilatif Abdalla. After providing further details about the publication project within the framework of which the translations of Abdilatif Abdalla’s poems were conceived of and accomplished, the focus will be on the textual challenges and the main translational strategies that were adopted in this work, which were based on some stylistic features of his poetry, i.e. the language variety and the prosody. Finally, by drawing from Umberto Eco’s semiotic and aesthetic reflections on translation (2003), the discourse will attempt to show that the stylistic choices adopted by an author intermingle indissolubly with other aspects of that author’s creative work in constructing the text’s whole as it is encountered by the reader/listener.