Summing It All Up By Mitiku Adisu If you were to sum up in a few words the trajectory of your life, what would those words be? "Can’t drink coffee on a running horse?" "The best is yet to come?" "Life goes on" was how the octogenarian Robert Frost (d. 1963) responded to a journalist’s query. Frost is gone, but his memory lives on. What about Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin (1936-2006), Ethiopia's preeminent communitarian poet-playwright? We'll look at the quintet briefly below, even as we recall the glory days of Ethiopian theater ( እናት ዓለም ጠኑ Enat Alam Tannu, an adaptation of Brecht's Mother Courage; ሀ ሁ በስድስት ወር Ha Hu Basidst Wer, The Alphabet in Six Months), each of which was packed for months on end, with audiences poring over the playwright's perky prose like possessed monastic holy men. Not unlike the prophets of old, Tsegaye had a disposition to carry in his person the tragedies, beauty, and hopes of the Motherland. The verse
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