Interview with küçük İskender, 30 July 2015

“There’s no such thing as good poetry. What we call “good poetry” is just poetry itself – if it is, it is. There’s no such thing as bad poetry either, because that is not poetry. It should not be weighed on the scales of poetry.” Iskender 2015 An interview with küçük İskender, 30 July 2015: […]

Pomegranate Garden – Haydar Ergülen

HAYDAR ERGÜLEN’S FIRST SELECTION OF POETRY IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION IS PUBLISHED BY PARTHIAN. TO BUY THIS BEAUTIFUL BOOK FOLLOW THE LINK: https://parthian-books.myshopify.com/search?q=pomegranate “The poetry of Haydar Ergülenunquestionably draws upon and expresses many of the basic forces that continue to shape Turkish culture and literature: however, as with most of the best poetry produced anywhere, its […]

Manual for Mourning a Great Poet

‘Because life is the most tragic, most magnificent, most merciless trick death can play on us.’ küçük İskender, ‘Somebody Call an Ambulance’ When you first hear of his illness, you should be in the company of a genius journalist at seven at night and still at work. Upon going into the underwater world […]

Sonnet of the Wishing Stone by Enis Batur

If I were rain, and on your earth could rain If I were a candle, could light your way If I were fire, could set your bed aflame If I were a pen, could write on your page . If I were sky, carmine blue If I were desert, scorpion yellow If I were stone, […]

The Batterers by küçük İskender

for want of a cliche ‘it was an autumn whose face had been knifed by the rain’ istanbul taking it all back under grey veils the men who battered me – a grand total of five or three Maybe a david bowie song I listened to repeatedly maybe a single lover’s head that fell to […]

Stone Mirror Sonnet – Enis Batur

What are you, of what? Don’t mind I asked the question I know: Firstly, not mine, secondly what are you? For years I looked at blind walls, in mirrors The lettering in my own lines, I could not figure, What am I to me, what exactly to you, What is the sound of you […]

Istanbul of the jinn spirits – Enis Batur

Respectful whore, Paris; her legs spread, Rome; crazy courtesan, Venice; strict pimp, saint Petersburg; daughter of unseen flames, London – sole hermaphrodite among all of Europe’s girls: Istanbul, queen city, king city, fallen city, riven city, thousand-and-one leaves, city of moans and deep silences. Multicoloured (its rainbow incomplete: the White wiped out), multilingual (horizontal Babel), […]

Shade by Behçet Necatigil

Shade The stretching shade of mid-afternoon sun Goes, stays in front of old houses If memories have begun then evening is near Clouds hasten above your head. . This flashback reminds you Of fiery deserts you’ve crossed You were exhausted, walking without shade No drop of water, nor date palm tree. . The stretching shade […]

Tierra del Fuego by Lâle Müldür

Between sea shells, among seaweed. Those dark objects of the underwater world. Is your image. In the Siamese cats I see in my dreams. ON THE WALLS OF ODARA. In the cracks in ODARA walls. In the place where distinctive claw marks you left on me begin and end. YOUR FACE IS THERE. . That […]

On this road by Ferit Edgü

On this road asphalt road sail hung sea early, the day left us so early the water is ice so we all, have been deceived? sheer mountain blocked path choppy sea who has who has, who has been lost on this road? . Poet: Ferit Edgü Translation (draft): C.Stockford