Poet in the making

Yonatan Telelew is only sixteen, yet he has published an Amharic poetry book. His poems deserve attention not because they were composed by a 16-year-old boy but because they have freshness and astonishing directness. They reflect an appreciation for the birds, trees, flowers and show concern for social issues.

 Yonatan likes to observe his surroundings and his attention is directed outward to what is going on around him. The detachment of a young boy adds objectivity to the perception of experience portrayed in his poems.

Apologies to Ms. Ullman

I’m a Hama Tuma fan.He writes the most marvellous poem, with a warm feel to it.There is always some surprise or other just lurking around the corner.The next poem, ‘Apologies to Ms. Ullman‘ reprinted from his poetry collection ‘Of Spades and Ethiopians’(1991) has a taunting use of apparent praise and aplogies for dispraise.I have no idea if Liv ullman, the character in the poem, is a real or fictitious one but it seems a familiar story told in an appealing way.

An Amharic Poem by Abebaw Melaku

Melkam Ken Tolo Na

Here is an Amharic poem composed in anticipation of the New Year that I have received from Mitiku Adisu through my e-mail. I’d like to express my appreciation for the contribution.

All in my Thought

Here is a poem, “All in My Thought”, composed by Giddi Abamegal, an Oromo refugee in Kenya and published in Tilting Cages:A Collection of Refugee Writings, edited by Noomi Flutter and Cari Solomon, reflecting the predicaments of exile.

Reminiscences From A Pen

Here is a poem from Abera Jembere’s book, Agony in the Grand Palace, published in 2003 by shama books where the author reminiscences the horror he’s seeen when the Derg took measure against Emperor Haile Selassie I and his 60 other officials in 1974.Ironically, the book was translated into English by Dr. Hailu Araya, who today in his turn  ‘languishing’ in Kaliti prison along with other CUD leaders.The message seems aptly relevant to today’s context.

Kifle Gebre-Egziabher: A poet in the making

By Kumlachew Fantahun

Kifle Gebre-Egzabher is a 65-year-old retired agriculturalist living in Bahar Dar town.Though his love for literature, mostly novel, dates back to his childhood days, it was only recently that he realized his talent for writing poetry in English.

In a country where writing in English is not a common practise, Kifle ventures to make his modest contribution to Ethiopian literature in English.His poems may not be flawless but for a man of his education and experience, one can say, he writes very good poems with bold originality and charm.

La Connection française

 Solomon Deressa, the highly gifted veteran Ethiopian poet who is now admittedly, ‘loitering in the sloughs of Western universities, more to survive than to be edified’ is perhaps the only Ethiopian poet who coined poetry in three languages, Amharic, English, and French.

And his mother tongue is Oromigna, in which he grew up hearing his grandfather reciting poetry.

Solomon was described in African Arts, a serious periodical where a collection of his French and English poetry appeared, as ‘the new group of truly international poets whose use of varied language serves to emphasize the persistent universal humanism of which his perceptive and intimate poetry speaks.’

The following post is an extract from an extensive interview he had given for the Amharic Reporter magazine some eight years ago while he was here to launch his second Amharic poetry collection, Zebet Ilfitu.

 I have selected the part in which he talked about his connection with French literature and his attachment to their City of Light and I’ve tried to translate it as literary as possible. Here it goes.

Shifting Gears

I consider Solomon Deressa to be one of the most excellent Ethiopian poets, along with Tsegaye GebreMedhin, Mengistu Lemma, Gebre Kristos Desta,and Debebe Seifu.

A one-time painter,an art critic and poet, Solomon has two collection of Amharic poems, Lijinet(1970) and Zebet Ilfitu(1999) which have been lyrical delight for lovers of modern and contemporary verse for the last three decades.

His excellent standards are maintained in both collections and manifested in his rich and intimate poems.

Admittedly not of the traditional school of poetry and a self-proclaimed rebel, Solomon spoke of drawing the feel of his Amharic poetry from the sound of the language itself, not the direct utterances, but the underlying rythms.

Though not widely known as his Amharic poems, he has also a collection of poems in French and English that appeared in various publications.Twelve of his English  poems written while attending the 1972-73 session of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa were published in Topics,the United States Information Service.others,which he called them fragments from the Horn are included in anthology, Silence is Not Golden, A Critical Anthology of Ethiopian Literature,(1995),along with his wonderful essay, ‘Poems and its Matrix’.There were also  French and English poems that were published in African Art, a quartelry devoted to the graphic, plastic, performing and literary arts of Africa in 1969 out of  which I am publishing one, Shifting Gears.Over to you now.

Amharic Love Song

I have found this translation of an old Amharic song in a journal, Black Orpheus that came out some fourty years ago.

No literary-historical background is given and no mention of the translator is made.It only says Love Song (from the amharic).

I think it will certainly be of great interest to anyone interested in Amharic folk poetry.