My home has blackened
like a cloud
repeating everything I did . . .
piling dirt on dirt
until the grime infects my eyes
gaps in floorboards . . . corners stopped
with beautifully knitted rugs
but hiding thorns and caked with dust . . .
my old home . . . you I left behind
hated and abandoned . . . refused to look at . . .
you who I denied . . .
you go on calling . . . answers I held back
have formed an edge . . . grown teeth
that click as they approach me now . . .
piercing my raw skin with memories
an empty hill . . . the creaking hull of you
suspended there . . . calling my name
a shabby tent that mocks me . . . brings me back
unrests me sensing my exhaustion . . . the contrite
state that I have reached . . . you who rock me
back and forth . . . the hill and pit and you . . .
cracked earth . . . a valley gorge . . . a cave
to hide myself inside . . . the slope and steep
where we assembled and discussed . . .
laid bets . . . argued . . . you who pulls a dagger
made of steely sorrows . . . sticks it in my side
I am a woman born from my regrets
I am loud with them . . . I cannot shy away
there is no logic in the things I took for granted
trivial as childs’ play . . . a sudden noise . . .
my tolerance and patience pilfered . . . gone
now my broken home . . . you rebuild yourself
while the marriage I neglected mocks me . . .
I will always be in labor . . . feel my pain
increase as time goes by . . . a death row prisoner
weaker as the days tick by . . . homeless leftover
of withered charms. . . lethargic
my old home . . . you blacken
like a wave retreating . . . rising and receding . . .
you swagger all around me . . . wrestle me
and draw your flashbacks on my eyelids
throw your grit into my eyes . . .
you punch me . . . you floor me
The Home I Left Behind
Mekdes Jemberu
translated from the Amharic by Fasika Ayalew and Chris Beckett
Listen to the poem read in the original Amharic by Fasika Ayalew:
When I was in Addis Ababa last year I met up with Wondwosen Adane, lecturer on Ethiopian literature at Addis Ababa University, and asked him which poets he thinks are interesting and important in the current Amharic poetry scene. He suggested a list which included Mekdes Jemberu, so I arranged to meet her and talk about her poetry. She is a quiet person, but very passionate about words and women’s literature. She founded the Ethiopian Women Writers Association and in 1998 published an anthology of female poets entitled Egya, meaning “We.” She presented me with one of her books, and I asked her to choose a few poems that she particularly likes and would like to see translated. The first she marked was “Yafereskut Gojo,” so this is the first of her poems I have tackled. The process has been difficult, however, because I soon realised that Mekdes has a very rich vocabulary which includes Ge’ez (the predecessor of Amharic, now mostly used only in churches), also a style which is impressionistic, dreamlike, intensely personal but allegorical too, and her imagery is full of real dust and dirt. My Amharic dictionary was simply not up to Mekdes’ level! So I asked my friend Fasika Ayalew, herself a wonderful Ethiopian poet, for help and she came up with a translation which we have worked back and forth together until we are reasonably happy with the result.
—Chris Beckett
—Chris Beckett
Mekdes Jemberu is a popular Ethiopian poet and founder of the Ethiopian Women Writers Association. In the late 1990s, she helped to organise an anthology of women’s writing with other poets including the late Firmaye Alemu, entitled Egna (We). Her own poetry collections include Muga (2008) and Enbassel (2016).
Fasika Ayalew is an Ethiopian poet and translator who works as writer/editor for an English-language magazine called Welcome to Addis. She is writing a book about the late Ethiopian poet laureate, Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin. Her translation of poems by Bedilu Wakjira appeared in Modern Poetry in Translation issue “One Thousand Suns” (2/2016).
Chris Beckett grew up in Addis Ababa and his latest collection of poems, Ethiopia Boy, was published by Carcanet/Oxford Poets in 2013. He translates Ethiopian poets including Bewqetu Seyoum (In Search of Fat, Flipped Eye, 2012), Zewdu Milikit, and Bedilu Wakjira. His translation of Alemu Tebeje’s Greetings to the People of Europe was used in light projections by American artist Jenny Holzer throughout 2017.
