RIBKA SIBHATU
c 2012
DAUGHTER OF LOCUSTS
Locusts, darkened sky.
Flayed earth. A mother
panting in bed.
A gloomy month, September,
void of vegetables and greenery.
'Ileleleleleleleleleleleleleil...!
Ileleleleleleleleleleleleleil...!
Ileleleleleleleleleleleleleil...!'
Her crying started as soon
As she came into the world.
Freed from suffering
the search for milk began
going from door to door.
the search for milk began
going from door to door.
Emaciated livestock lacking milk —
how to soothe the guest?
How to quench a new mother's thirst?
if the goats are not merciful.
how to soothe the guest?
How to quench a new mother's thirst?
if the goats are not merciful.
In that desolate moment
she devoured the milk that had just been milked
and took up her crying once more.
she devoured the milk that had just been milked
and took up her crying once more.
'Is that chubby one crying again?'
'Roly-poly's crying —
as if there wasn't enough trouble'
as if there wasn't enough trouble'
'My poor little one... born into
chaos and famine!'
chaos and famine!'
date unspecified
Translated by
ANDRÉ NAFFIS-SAHELY
The following information appears on the website of The Poetry Translation Centre. [It is re-posted here for information purposes only and, like the poems re-posted above, remains its author's exclusive copyright-protected intellectual property.]
Ribka Sibhatu writes in Tigrinya and Italian. Her poetry reflects on the immigrant experience in Europe. Born in Asmara, Eritrea, in 1962, she was imprisoned for a year in 1979 and then fled the country in 1980. Travelling first to Ethiopia and then to France, Ribka Sibhatu moved to Italy in 1996 and settled in Rome, where she has lived ever since. She holds a PhD in communication studies from Rome's La Sapienza.
Ribka Sibhatu's first published work was Aulò! Canto Poesia dall'Eritrea (Sinnos, 1993), a collection of lyrics and prose poems originally written in Tigrinya and translated by the author into Italian. This bilingual meditation on her past life in Eritrea and subsequent experience as a migrant was followed in 1999 by Il Cittadino che non c'è: L'immigrazione nei media Italiani (EdUP), a sociological look at the Italian media's coverage of immigrant communities. In 2012 she published Il numero esatto delle stelle e altre fiabe eritree (Sinnos), a bilingual Italian-Tigrigna collection of Eritrean fairy tales. Ribka Sibhatu speaks five languages and currently works as a trainer, consultant and interpreter of Italian Court and other international organizations.
Her 2009 collection Aulò! has been likened to Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass and offers a remarkable personal achievement in giving lyric expression to the Eritrean oral poetic tradition. The former editor of Modern Poetry in Translation, Sasha Dugdale, has written: 'Ribka is a really important activist-poet for our times.'
Use the link below to read more poems by Eritrean poet RIBKA SIBHATU:
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