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 Poet
and scholar, Dr. Reesom Haile returned
to Eritrea after a twenty-year exile, which included teaching in
Communications at The New School for Social Research in New York
and a subsequent career as a Development Communications Consultant,
working with UN Agencies, governments and NGOs around the world.
His first collection of poems in Tigrinya, Waza Ms Qumneger Ntnsae
won the 1998 Raimok prize, Eritrea's highest award for literature.
His second collection in Tigrinya is Bahlna Bahlbana (Our
Culture Our Pleasure). Translated with the American poet and
critic, Charles Cantalupo, a bilingual, Tigrinya/English collection
of Reesom Haile’s poetry, We Have Our Voice, has been
published by the Red Sea Press. We Have Our Voice is also
a two-volume CD, available from Asmarino.com. Red Sea Press will
publish a second bilingual collection, We Invented the Wheel,
later this year. National as well as international critical acclaim
has established Reesom Haile as Eritrea’s national poet. In
Amiri Baraka’s words, "Reesom Haile’s spare poetic
line carries the weight of incisive image, narrative clarity, irony
plus a droll humor that speaks ever after you finished reading."
For Carole Boyce Davies, "Reesom Haile offers poetry that is
at once sensual and seductive, wise and politically clever, full
of wonderful surprises. His poems communicate the author's deep
love for life, his country, absolute freedom and the magic of the
word." In Bob Holman’s judgement, "Reesom Haile is
Poet Laureate of Eritrea in the only way possible: elected by the
people in the streets. His countrymen & women know and love
his poems by heart, shout them back at him, confront him as if literature
might walk, and breathe, and engage as life always engages in Asmara,
shoulder to shoulder and lip to ear. How's that sound? is not a
question here, because language and music and the great script Ge’ez
all resonate full body." |
 Charles
Cantalupo's books include literary criticism
— Against All Odds: African Languages and Literatures
into the 21st Century, Ngugi wa Thiong'o: Texts
and Contexts and The World of Ngugi wa Thiong'o (Africa
World Press), A Literary Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes's Masterpiece
of Language (Bucknell University Press) and Poetry, Mysticism,
and Feminism: from th' nave to the chops (Spectacular Diseases)
— poetry — Anima/l Wo/man and Other Spirits (Spectacular
Diseases) — and poetry in translation: We Have Our Voice:
Selected Poetry of Reesom Haile which is also available on
CD (Asmarino.com), and We Invented the Wheel. Cantalupo’s
essays and poetry have appeared in numerous journals, and he has
given many lectures and poetry readings throughout America, Europe
and Africa. His translations include poetry in Gikuyu, Russian,
and Tigrinya. His plays have been produced in America, Cameroon,
Puerto Rico and Morocco. In 1994, he directed Ngugi wa Thiong'o:
Texts and Contexts, the largest conference ever held on an
African writer. He was co-chair of Against All Odds: African
Languages and Literatures into the 21st Century, a seven-day
conference and festival devoted to the presentation and critical
discussion of the languages and literatures of all of Africa,
held in Asmara, Eritrea, in January, 2000, and he continues as
co-director of the initiative. Professor of English and Comparative
Literature at The Pennsylvania State University, Schuylkill Campus,
he is married with four children and lives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,
100 yards north of the grave of H.D.
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Tigrinya
Dear Africans
Thy Brother's Envy
Democracy
"Ova Signora"
Knowledge
The Camel
Voice