This anthology of Ethiopian Amharic poetry in English is in three main sections. Folk and Religious poetry first: rhymed couplets praising beautiful women, animals, warriors, emperors; ironic boasts in the voice of jigger fleas; poems praising the wonders of modern plumbing and bewailing famine and poverty, corruption, unreliable lovers; longer Q’ine poems written by priests, packed with biblical references, and poems written in the ‘Wax and Gold’ tradition where double meanings give a simple poem hidden political or profane resonance. A selection of work by the main twentieth-century Ethiopian poets follows, experimenting with free verse, epic poems, always engaged with the health and happiness of the nation and looking to the wider world. The longest section is given over to work by thirty contemporary male and female writers, some living in Ethiopia, others in exile. They ask what it means to be Ethiopian, in a young, fast growing economy, heirs of the one African state never colonised, but beset by huge political, ethnic and moral problems.

Songs We Learn from Trees: An Anthology of Ethiopian Amharic Poetry PDF

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