#evolutionarypoems

Mihret Kebede (trans. Anna Moschovakis)

#evolutionarypoems is a translation of Mihret Kebede’s Amharic poem sequence by Anna Moschovakis and the author.
#evolutionarypoems is part of a collaboration between Kebede and Moschovakis that began when they met in Addis Ababa in 2009.
#evolutionarypoems is an unfinished and evolving conversation made up of many unkept promises.
#evolutionarypoems contains translations but is not a translation.
#evolutionarypoems is a bilingual book that extends beyond the book. #evolutionarypoems is a record of Ethiopia’s recent and current socio-political conditions in a critical voice of a poet and her friend.
#evolutionarypoems is incomplete.
#evolutionarypoems is research.
#evolutionarypoems is a search.
#evolutionarypoems is a commitment to a willingness to fail.
#evolutionarypoems is an invitation to a standing date.
#evolutionarypoems is a speaking in silence.
#evolutionarypoems is resistance in silence.

'At once archive of the present and activation of silenced histories, Mihret Kebede’s #evolutionarypoems powerfully ignites an imaginary of resistance in order to change the rules of the game: “let me become flame / I am the people … not fuel, nor tool.” In this first English edition, Anna Moschovakis’s superbly energizing translation from the Amharic—document of sustained friendship and dialogue—is an expansion of that collective imaginary.' – Uljana Wolf