Friday, March 9, 2018

Reading Amharic poetry at Global Fellows Poetry Reading event

This coming Tuesday I am invited to read poetry in Amharic at Global Fellows Poetry Reading event at my university. Arlyce who invited me to the event is a our university alumni, who traveled to Ethiopia as one of Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship for Poets. The fellowship is to support financially poets who would like to travel and spend up to four months in foreign country and produce poems from the inspiration they get from the travel and the cultural contact it generates. You can find more information about the program or Arlyce's time from the links I provided below.
http://blogs.bu.edu/world/




I was asked by the poet to translate either of her poems about Masinqo, Lalibela & Lake Tana. I translated all three. For those interested in the poems or my translations contact me offline and I will send you. The poet also would like to introduce Amharic poetry to the audience and she offered to translate or work on English version of a nice short Amharic poetry. Here is what I need your help. I am looking for small amharic GiTm which can be representative of the language's poetic tradition preferably from celebrated writer of Amharic poetry. Other than some of the works of Kebede Mikael, Mengistu Lemma, Yoftahe Negussie, Tsegaye GM, Solomon Derssa, BeEwqetu Seyoum etc. which were already translated to English, can you suggest some?

https://arlycesfellowship.wordpress.com/