Issue #1 Winter 2002
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by Özdemir Asaf (translated by George Messo)
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Pay Ben pırıl pırıl
bir gemiydim eskiden. İnanırdım
saadetli yolculuklara. Adalar var zannederdim günesi,
maavi, dertsiz. Bütün hızımla koşardım
dalgalara. O zaman beni görseydiniz.
Ben pırıl pırıl
bir gemiydim eskiden. Beni o zaman görseydiniz Siz de gelirdiniz peşinden.
Ama şimdi şu akşam
saatinde Son liman kendim, bu döndüğüm, Bilmiş, bulmuş, anlamış. Hatırımda, bir
vakitler güldüğüm. Yoluna can serdiğim o kaçış.
Şimdi, şu aksam
saatinde Dönüyorum görmüş,
gecirmiş, atlatmış, Denizlerin doymayan sahilinde.
©Adam Yayinlari, Istanbul |
Share ©2002 George Messo |
ÖZDEMIR ASAF was born in Ankara, Turkey, in 1923. At an early age he moved with his family to Istanbul where he attended Galatasaray College and Kabatas, later studying in the Faculty of Law and Economics at Istanbul University. Asaf’s first poems began to appear with the “Garip” or “Strange” movement, a new literary aesthetic lead by Orhan Veli, Oktay Rifat and Melih Cevdet Anday, which aimed to break free of elitist Ottoman Divan poetry, with its formal restrictions and idealized romantic subjects. This “New Wave” laid emphasis on the commonplace, a poetics of daily life, conveyed in simple forms and arresting directness of address, more suited to the nuances and rhythms of daily speech. It was a formative period, and one which was to have a profound modernizing effect on Turkish poetry. The unexpected death of Orhan Veli in 1950, however, marked yet another new departure, the “Second New Wave”, no less radical than the first. Simplicity gave way to more complex free verse, and where the address had once been public, for the Second New Wave this became deeply personal. The paradoxical simplicity and obscurity of Asaf’s work owes itself in part to his fusion of the driving impulses of both First and Second New Wave aesthetics. Though often cited as a poet of the Second New Wave, Asaf’s playful, experimental logic and the aphoristic pithiness of his short poems placed him in a category of his own: an avant-garde poet everyone could read. In his lifetime Asaf won substantial critical acclaim for the uniqueness of his work and earned a large readership. Since his death in 1981, his reputation and his readership have continued to grow. His first five collections, printed in a single volume, have extended to sixteen editions. In 2001, Asaf's entire works were re-issued by Adam Books, Istanbul, to mark the 20th anniversary of the poet’s death. His major poetry collections include: Dunya Kacti Gozume (The World Caught My Eye, 1955), Sen Sen Sen (You You You, 1956), Cicekleri Yemeyin (Don't Eat The Flowers, 1975), Yalnizlik Paylasilmaz (Loneliness Can't be Shared, 1971) and Benden Sonra Mutluluk (The Happiness After Me, published posthumously in 1983). - biographical note by George Messo (©2002 George Messo).
GEORGE MESSO was born in 1969. His books include From The Pine Observatory (Halfacrown Books, 2000), Framing Reference (Ed. Valerie Kennedy, 2001) and The Complete Poems of Jean Genet (translated with Jeremy Reed). He has received a Council of Europe Translation Award for his versions of Rainer Maria Rilke and was Hawthornden Fellow in Poetry for June/July 2002 at Hawthornden Castle, Scotland. His poems, translations, and reviews have been widely published. He is the editor of the international journal Near East Review and teaches at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey.