Letters & Sounds

Here is the cover of my new translation of Ilhan Berk’s Letters & Sounds, due out this summer from Red Hand Books. You can read a short blurb and pre-order a copy – if the mood takes you – from the RHB website at www.rhbks.com This is my fourth book-length translation of Berk’s extraordinary poems. A Leaf About to Fall came out with Salt in 2006 and made the shortlist for the 2007 Popescu European Poetry Translation Prize. In 2008 Shearsman published Madrigals, followed in 2009 by my anthology (including work by Ilhan Berk), Ikinci Yeni: The Turkish Avant-Garde, which was also shortlisted for the Popescu Prize in 2011. Again in 2009, Salt published The Book of Things, Berk’s epic poetic trilogy of Things That Are, Things That Aren’t, Long Live Numbers, and House. Berk’s new book, Letters & Sounds, features a stunning cover painting by the man himself.

OUT NOW!

OUT NOW! Turkish Poetry Today 2014, with stunning poetry by Güven Turan, Asaf Hâlet Çelebi, Melih Cevdet Anday, Lâle Müldür, Sami Baydar, and Bedri Rahmi Eyuboğlu. Among the translators: Ruth Christie, Murat Nemet-Nejat, Mevlüt Ceylan, and Clifford Endres. A one-of-a-kind bilingual journal of modern and contemporary Turkish poetry edited annually by George Messo, Şenol Bezci, T. Kenny Fountain, and Fahri Öz. Order your copy now, from over 100 online bookstores worldwide.

See more Red Hand Books at rhbks.com

Perhaps I too am Prose

Your face is a street leading down to the sea,
It’s a crossroads, your face is a water clock

Whenever I bend down to your face
It’s a market opening early

You are a lily without rhyme or metre
White I breathe upon you deep blue

As if I were working on a long poem
Your face conferred its longest rhymes

And who knows what your face rubs off
Perhaps I too am prose

 

İlhan Berk
Translated by George Messo