A selection of Q’ene
“We do not respect an angel for his wings/ or because he covers his face with his wings…” A selection of q’ene from Ethiopia, translated by Chris Beckett and Donald Levine.
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Ethiopian praise poems
“You lime of the forest, honey among the rocks,/ lemon of the cloister, grape in the savannah./ A hip to be enclosed by one hand;/ a thigh round like a piston…” A selection of six Ethiopian praise poems.
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Ethiopian famine poems
“Destitution is building a house./ Destitution is walling me in…” A selection of oral poems about famine, gathered by Fekade Azeze with the help of local schoolchildren in the highlands of Showa.
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Afar war chants
“a man gave twelve cows for a beautiful woman and seventeen days after the wedding/ I came to the bridegroom, armed with my spear…” Two ancient Afar war chants, as recorded by Georges C Savard.
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Sketches and Canticles of Lent (after Shallon Fadlien)
“We know the triumphant end of that old scenario:/ disembowelled shroud, vacant catacomb…” Three poems to mark Easter Sunday, by John Robert Lee.
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Camp in Blikkiesdorp
“My happiest memories of those early days in Blikkiesdorp are about my brother Jabulani…” Story of the Week (March 21), by Nnamdi Oguike.
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Millipede
“now I want to return,/ return to that alerted night,/ when you walked on my face/ with a thousand legs like a millipede,/ as if you owned the place…” Weekend poem, by Jeremy Freedman.
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My Weakness
“As a boy I gave a hateful teacher/ a list of one hundred quotes on compassion from the Quran./ He hung a poster of George Bush by the blackboard/ and started purposely mispronouncing my name…” Poem of the Week (March 16), by Kaveh Akbar.
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Tacit the Bedspread
“And when he was all done she brought the mirror for him to look in. And he sat a long while gazing at his new appearance, trying to recognize himself.” Story of the Week (March 14), by Cecil Bødker. Translated from Danish by Michael Goldman.
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Sengetæppet Tavs
Original Danish text of Cecil Bødker’s ‘Tacit the Bedspread’.
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