Carcanet Press - Review of Chris Beckett's <i>Ethiopia Boy</i> - Julian Stannard, <i>Poetry Review</i>, Autumn 2013

Ethiopia Boy by Chris Beckett is a delight. For a moment I thought of Orlando, that mischievous, nevertheless generous, love letter by Virginia Woolf for Vita Sackville-West. Like Orlando,Beckett’s collection travels through time as we are given dazzling vignettes which, without any pedagogic insistence, teach us through poetry about a country which has too often been mired in journalistic accounts of political catastrophe and terrible famine. Not that the country’s troubled history is ignored – see ‘To the Man with a Guzzler Wife’, whose epigraph is taken from Unheard Voices:Drought, Famine and God in Ethiopian Oral Poetry by Fekade Azese: ‘You who have a guzzler wife / divorce her and wait for me.’

Ethiopia Boy is, in fact, a love letter. The nostalgia for for Haile Selassie’s ‘glamorous barefoot empire, home of black-maned lions and [...] blazing young singers of Ethio-Jazz’, where the young Beckett lived in the 1960s, is reinforced by the poet’s continuing engagement with, and translation of, Ethiopian poetry. It is a love letter to Abebe, the cook’s son (the object of the English boy’s affections), and the opening piece – an extended apostrophe, a type of litany, unabashed – is emblematic. Here’s a taste:

Abebe, from a distant afternoon
Abebe, from an afternoon where everybody naps
eventhe donkeys propped against trees
on their little hoofs
Abebe, tall as a eucalyptus tree
Abebe, black all over when he pisses on a eucalyptus tree

[...]

Abebe, calling come here! to the dog calledCome Here

Childlike memory is mediated through adult knowingness. One result is the skilful negotiation between different poetic traditions. These ‘English’ poems are shot through with the force of a dynamic oral culture often sharpened with a particular kind of proverbial fiat; some of the poems come with ‘footnotes’that complement/explain the generous use of Amharic, quite a few of which (appropriately) are to do with food. And, among the many gifts, not least a knack for creating a raggedy, ‘hybridised’ lyric – poems teetering on the brink of song – the poet has a nose for titles. See, for example, ‘What about the scabs on Tamrat’s knee?’ It is Abebe, the cook’s son, who is the trigger for recollection and loss. He is summoned up at the end of the book in the deeply moving ‘About the fish in Lake Langano’:

I have pitched my tent, Abebe, by the lake

[...]

I wait for you to appear after the years
and take me fishing

[...]

do the fish know we’re coming, Abebe?

[...]

it is too long since he came
it is too long since he bent forward
and called us to him…

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Review of Chris Beckett's Ethiopia Boy - Julian Stannard, Poetry Review, Autumn 2013 Ethiopia Boy by Chris Beckett is a delight. For a moment I thought of Orlando, that mischievous, nevertheless generous, love letter by Virginia Woolf for Vita Sackville-West. Like Orlando,Beckett’s collection travels through time as we are given dazzling vignettes which, without any pedagogic insistence, teach us through poetry about a country which has too often been mired in journalistic accounts of political catastrophe and terrible famine. Not that the country’s troubled history is ignored – see ‘To the Man with a Guzzler Wife’, whose epigraph is taken from Unheard Voices:Drought, Famine and God in Ethiopian Oral Poetry by Fekade Azese: ‘You who have a guzzler wife / divorce her and wait for me.’ Ethiopia Boy is, in fact, a love letter. The nostalgia for for Haile Selassie’s ‘glamorous barefoot empire, home of black-maned lions and [...] blazing young singers of Ethio-Jazz’, where the young Beckett lived in the 1960s, is reinforced by the poet’s continuing engagement with, and translation of, Ethiopian poetry. It is a love letter to Abebe, the cook’s son (the object of the English boy’s affections), and the opening piece – an extended apostrophe, a type of litany, unabashed – is emblematic. Here’s a taste: Abebe, from a distant afternoon Abebe, from an afternoon where everybody naps eventhe donkeys propped against trees on their little hoofs Abebe, tall as a eucalyptus tree Abebe, black all over when he pisses on a eucalyptus tree [...] Abebe, calling come here! to the dog calledCome Here Childlike memory is mediated through adult knowingness. One result is the skilful negotiation between different poetic traditions. These ‘English’ poems are shot through with the force of a dynamic oral culture often sharpened with a particular kind of proverbial fiat; some of the poems come with ‘footnotes’that complement/explain the generous use of Amharic, quite a few of which (appropriately) are to do with food. And, among the many gifts, not least a knack for creating a raggedy, ‘hybridised’ lyric – poems teetering on the brink of song – the poet has a nose for titles. See, for example, ‘What about the scabs on Tamrat’s knee?’ It is Abebe, the cook’s son, who is the trigger for recollection and loss. He is summoned up at the end of the book in the deeply moving ‘About the fish in Lake Langano’: I have pitched my tent, Abebe, by the lake [...] I wait for you to appear after the years and take me fishing [...] do the fish know we’re coming, Abebe? [...] it is too long since he came it is too long since he bent forward and called us to him… Previous review of 'Ethiopia Boy'... Next review of 'Ethiopia Boy'... To the Chris Beckett page... To the 'Ethiopia Boy' page...	Share this... Quick Links Carcanet Poetry Carcanet Classics Carcanet Fiction Carcanet Film Lives and Letters PN Review Video Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! The Carcanet Blog We've Moved! read more Books of the Year read more One Little Room: Peter McDonald read more Collected Poems: Mimi Khalvati read more Invisible Dog: Fabio Morbito, translated by Richard Gwyn read more Dante's Purgatorio: Philip Terry read more
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Review of Chris Beckett's Ethiopia Boy - Julian Stannard, Poetry Review, Autumn 2013