The Greatest Find of the Week!

Ah Google. Its a wonder what typing in "famous" "poet" "sudan" can get you. After trying, without success, to generically search for famous African poets, I got smart(er) and decided to begin searching individual countries. What I found, ladies and gents, was the greatest poetry find of the week!! Allow me to introduce ****DRUM ROLL*** Sudanese poet Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi. Haven't heard of him...? Slackers! JK. I hadn't heard of him before today, when i stumbled upon a Guardian article featuring him, but now I'm hooked.

According to the article -
"Al-Raddi has been publishing poetry since he was 15, when his poem The Wind was published in the literary journal Al-Sahwa. Born in 1969, he grew up in Omdurman, Khartoum, where he still lives. According to Ismail his "exceptional talent" was recognized in his early days at school, and he even owes the name Al-Raddi to the famous Arabic poet Ali-Shreif Al-Raddi."

Since these early days, Al-Raddi has published four collections of poetry and has been published in numerous literary magazines. He was also chosen among only a handful of poets to perform at the first World Poets' Tour in 2005 and the second, in 2008. In addition to his poetry-related accolades, Al-Raddi is also the cultural editor of Al-Sudani newspaper in Sudan.

Needless to say, he's a rocking poet and quite worthy of his place as the Sixth Poet in our African Poets Week.

I am a huge fan of poems that write about poetry, so I just had to post the beautiful piece below. If you're hungry for more, though, check out Al-Raddi's profile on PoetryTranslation.org

Dream
BY Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi

Poetry - may you be a green body.
May you be a language
in which I wander
with my wings and my self.
Be the inspiration of my tongue,
so that I may pasture
the tribes of my voice - though they are silent.

Sleepless
and alone, I see
you will not be
a green body.
You were neither
a good master, to be bought,
nor the muse.
My longed for delirium, my memory.