What's in a name?

This is Hiwot Adilow performing at Brave New Voices 2012. One day, I went on a Twitter rant (as I often do) about people mispronouncing my name and how often people do not even try, they just jump to give me some nonsense nickname. A friend then sent me this link and it struck a chord with me. One of the things I am so proud of and love in my culture is how names are important and they mean something, they tell a story about the time, place, circumstance or family in which a child is born. It used to be that you could not just name a child any random thing, naming was an important ritual but now people are so enamored with English and yeah.....that's another story. Anyway, I do love some spoken word. I hope you enjoy it :)

I’m tired of people asking me to smooth my name out for them

they want me to bury it in the English so they can understand.

I will not accommodate the word for mouth

I will not break my name so your lazy English can sleep its tongue on top.

fix your lips around it.

no, you can’t give me a stupid nickname to replace this gift of five letters.

try to pronounce it before you write me off as

lil one

afro

the ethiopian girl

or any other poor excuse of a name you’ve baptized me with in your weakness.

My name is insulted that you won’t speak it.

My name is a jealous god

I kneel my english down everyday and offer my begging and broken Amharic

to be accepted by this lord from my parents’ country

this is my religion

you are tainting it

every time you call me something else you break it and kick it

you think you’re being clever by turning my name into a cackle?

he what? he why? he when how he what who?

he did whaaaat?

My name is not a joke

this is more than wind and the clack of a consonant.

My father handed me this heavy burden of five letters decades before i was born

with letters, he tried to snatch his Ethiopia back from the middle of a red terror.

He tried to overthrow a fascist.

He was thrown into prison

ran out of his home.

My name is a frantic attempt to save a country

It is a preserved connection

The only line i have leading me to a place i’ve never been.

It’s a boat

a plane

a vessel carrying me to earth i’ve never felt

I speak myself closer and closer to Ethiopia by wrapping myself in this name

This is my country in ink

My name is the signature at the end of the last letter before the army comes

it is the only music left in the midst of torture and fear

it is the air that filled my father’s lungs when he was released from prison

the inhale that ushers in beginning

my name is a poem

my father wrote it over and over and over again

It is the lullaby that sends his homesickness to bed.

I refuse to break myself into dust for people too weak to carry my name in their mouths

Take two syllables of your time to pronounce this song of mine,

it means life.

You shouldn’t treat a breath as carelessly as this.

Cradle my name between your lips as delicately as it deserves.

It’s Hiwot

say it right.