Academic literature on the topic 'Oromo poetry'

This article discusses about the role of Oromo oral poetry in helping girls[1] and women[2]to express their idea in their social life. It also aims to illustrate the talent of girls and women in creating and poeticizing oral poetry to display their opinion on social occurrences such as marriage ceremony, birth rite and at work place. During data collection, ethnographic methods such as observation, focus group discussions and semi-structured interview were employed. I interpreted data collected from the field through these methods. The analyzed data shows that oral poetry has a crucial role to help girls and women to express their idea in pre and post marriage respectively. Before marriage, it helps girls to display their feeling, thought and emotion concerning their future life and their friend’s social life. By using oral poetry, they advise their friends and show their devotion for each other. In post marriage, through oral poetry, women pray Waaqaa (Oromo God) for a woman who unable to bear child. The paper concludes that, oral poetry helps girls and women to express their opinion in every aspect of their life such as marriage, spiritual, and reproduction issues. Therefore, it helps them to make their voice heard in the community and enhances their creativity.[1] Is durba in Oromo and are unmarried virgin girl.[2] Is dubartii in Oromo and are married women.

ABSTRACT: This article deals with the interaction of Oromo's oral literature with written poetry. The main objective is to indicate the way different types of oral literature elements are adapted to written poetry. Data were collected through qualitative methods such as document analysis, interviews, and group discussions and were analyzed qualitatively. Types of Oromo oral literature like a proverb, oral narrative, oral poetry, and riddles are adapted into written poetry by different authors. The interaction forms a bridge between the oral literary culture and written literature enabling both to complimentarily develop Oromo literature. As Richard M. Dorson states, "Oral literature can and frequently does enter into written literature. A new generation of African novelists … strews the proverbs of their native languages throughout their fiction" (2). The intermixing of African orality and written literary works makes literature closer to culture and societal life. These connections sustain the life of oral literature in written literature, on the one hand, and enable written literature to aesthetically communicate the culture, history, norms, and beliefs of a group of people who share it.