Arc Publications will be publishing my selected poems of Birhan Keskin, & Silk & Love & Flame, in 2010 as part of the Visible Poets Series, edited by Jean Boase-Beier. For a little pre-taste, you might like to follow the link below to Shearsman Magazine, where you’ll find my translation of her poem, Winter of Murder.
Shearsman Magazine 77/78.
by Ömer Faruk Toprak
It was a road I took morning and night, stretching down to the sea. In winter it got a little muddy but when spring came it looked clean to me. I guess the market traders washed it down with water. I knew all the faces of the fishermen and the young bloods selling fruit & vegetables. If I ever went past without saying hello I’d get no more than five steps when I’d hear them call out behind:
“Abi, don’t go without these fresh lettuces. I’ll cut out two of these hearts for you”.
Even when I wasn’t sure what to buy they’d choose something and thrust it into my hand. It was like there was some feeling that bound us. I didn’t look down on them and they never showed me any disrespect.
I suppose it was the beginning of April. I’d left work early and was walking around aimlessly. Read more »
by Hilmi Yavuz
everything here is green,
like the sun;
summer angels have
their golden sky…
you question fruit blossoms
– soon, they’ll return to you
as pomegranates ripe with love…
wait…
Translated by George Messo
By Ömer Faruk Toprak
In Edremit, on the north facing slopes of Mount Kaz, winter lasts seven months. On the western sides the weather is warmer, and for nine months brings to the people there a spring-like climate. At eight hundred meters the cold, cool air increases. The people of these parts, more especially the villagers and shepherds, know well the coldness, the ill-minded winds of this mountain, and they’re keen to sense them coming. In these winds the sheep are driven into hay barns for shelter. There are seven types of mountain grass, and you’d be surprised to see mountain flowers you’d never seen elsewhere. Read more »
Poet and author Adrianne Marcus, a regular contributor to Near East Review and one of the poets I translated for my 2004 book Aradaki Ses, died early on September 9 after a long illness. Adrianne was 74. Born in Everett, Mass. on March 7, 1935, Adrianne grew up in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and graduated from San Francisco State University with degrees in Creative Writing.
Adrianne worked for The San Francisco Chronicle for many years as a food columnist. She also wrote two works of non-fiction, The Chocolate Bible and The Photojournalist: Mark & Leibovitz.
As a poet, Adrianne published over 400 poems, in such magazines as Atlantic Monthly, Paris Review, Descant, Poetry Ireland, and The Nation. A poetry pamphlet, Magritte’s Stone, was published in Ireland in 2000. A memorial celebration of her life and work was held at Temple Rodef Sholom, 170 N. San Pedro Road, San Rafael, CA 94901 at 11:00AM on Sunday, Sept. 13, 2009.
morning
silently secretly morning light unfolds,
spilling out over rooftops: to the face
of an old man drinking coffee on a broken chair,
to the simit hidden beneath its seller’s knitted
cloth, to the little finger of a child’s gloved
hand and to the city’s newly moving traffic.
but to others it never extends: the hands
laying hold to nihilism, a few books and
rock music, to a fragmented revolt
and the in-between-me that it doesn’t see.
beside me: sounds, barely distinct — i must
have left my radio on — i look out onto
the world from the vacuum of an apartment:
john lennon leaning on a wall smiling still.
Zafer Ekin Karabay
Translated by George Messo
Zafer Ekin Karabay was born in Kayseri, Turkey, in 1975. He was a graduate of Ankara University’s faculty of law and later taught at Eskisehir University. His poems, film reviews and essays were widely published. In 1999 he won the Yaşar Nabi Nayır Prize for young poets and received the Special Jury Award for the Arkadaş Z. Özger Poetry Prize in 2000. He committed suicide on 13 September, 2002, two and a half months before the publication of his first and only book, Şubatta Saklambaç (February Hide & Seek).
Four new translations of Ilhan Berk can be read online, in the September/October issue of Shadowtrain.
It’s wonderful to see Oktay Rifat’s Poems, translated by Ruth Christie and Richard McKane, making the shortlist for the 2009 Corneliu M Popescu Award for European Poetry in Translation. It’s a marvellous book, which I reviewed last year for World Literature Today. The judges for this year’s award are the poets Stephen Romer and Elaine Feinstein, and they’ll be announcing the winner in November. The complete shortlist looks like this:
Mad Women by Gabriela Mistral, translated by Randall Couch. Spanish / Chile. University of Chicago Press.
Unfinished Ode to Mud, by Francis Ponge, translated by Beverley Bie Brahic. French / France. CB Editions.
Against Heaven, by Dulce Maria Loynaz, translated by James O’Connor. Spanish / Cuba. Carcanet.
Poems, by Oktay Rifat, translated by Ruth Christie and Richard McKane. Turkish / Turkey. Anvil.
Courts of Air and Earth, various, translated by Trevor Joyce. Middle and Early-Modern Irish / Ireland. Shearsman Books.
Birdsong on the Seabed, by Elena Shvarts, translated by Sasha Dugdale. Russian / Russia. Bloodaxe.
Rime, by Dante Alighieri, translated by JG Nichols and Anthony Mortimer. Italian / Italy. One World Classics.
Selected Poems, by CP Cavafy, translated by Avi Sharon. Greek / Greece. Penguin Classics.
For a truely hilarious time, check out this fabulous, necessary blog of Bad British Architecture. It’s eye watering, in every sense. Here you’ll find the appalling Woodland Community Primary School, the delightful Stalinist pastiche of Sky Plaza Student Housing in Leeds, and this year’s unmistakably hideous winner of the Carbuncle Cup, Pier Head Ferry Terminal in Liverpool. It’s refreshing to hear someone giving these shocking architects the abuse they deserve.
