Reading Dr. Russom

I am a big fun of Dr. Russom’s poems….I love them. But I didn’t get a chance to own his books until recently. I would get one poem from here and one from there. Finally, I got one of his books from Amazon (I wonder why I didn’t search in Amazon till now). Anyways, I got the book “we have our voices”…a selected Poems of Reesom Haile. The book has 56 poems along with their English translation by Professor Charles Cantalupo of Pen State University. For any one who has some interest in art/poetry, it is a great book to have it on your shelf. I didn't get his other books, and I hope I will get them, especially the one with the audio (and if you know how to get it, pls tell me).

Why I love Dr. Russom’s work:
I love them, because they are full of art; they have beauty in them, there is creativity in them. They have full of humor. They are not a full page essay like other….they are short and precise. Unlike other Tigrigna poets which are usually loaded with heavy words, Dr. Russom’s poems are constructed from the words of the ordinary guy. They are simple, yet they always have powerful message. They are original and you wonder how he used them to tell his message.
Well, I may not be good enough to explain the power of his work. You have to read them for your self to appreciate them. So, I encourage you to get the book. But for now get some flavor from the following two of my favorite (from among many in the book).

Quan-qua-na
E’zi quan-qua-na
E’zi Tigrigna
K-t-ea-m
Chew a’lewo!
K-lm-lm
Te-s-mi a’lewo!
K-qe-m-m
Ber-bere a’lewo!
K-f-g-m
A’xmi a’lewo!
Q-re-bwo qu-re-b’wo
Ae-s-te-ma-q-r’wo!
The message here is clear. The beauty is on how he creatively constructed the lines to express the message. It looks he is responding to those who claim ‘Tigrigna dereq eyu, n’fkri kgelx ayk’aln eyu…can’t be used to express …this and that”. Here, he is not only telling us that their claim is not true, that Tigrigna has all the qualities, but is also showing us it has the qualities through this poet and his choice of words.
The Second of my favorite is Desta. Here is a PDF version of it.

Here, besides the beauty of the poet, there is a hidden message. But, it depends on how you wanted to interpret it. And different people may see it differently…only him self knows what he wanted to say. To me, the message is in the last lines of the poem, as is in most of his work. What did he want to say by the last lines? You can stretch your imagination
Finally, to fully appreciate his work; you have to listen to and see his performance…his dress, his art of his performance makes him the legend poet. Here is what I found in youtube…performing in Festival 1998 with Fihra… his signature poem, alewuna/alewana.