Turkish Poetry Translations

Turkish Poetry Translations Attilâ İlhan (1925-2005) was a Turkish poet, translator, novelist, screenwriter, editor, journalist, essayist, reviewer, socialist and intellectual. Ben Sana Mecburum: “You are indispensable” by Attila Ilhan translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch You are indispensable; how can you not know that you’re like nails riveting my brain? I see your eyes as ever-expanding dimensions. You are indispensable; how can you not know that I burn within, at the thought of you? Trees prepare themselves for autumn; can this city be our lost Istanbul? Now clouds disintegrate in the darkness as the street lights flicker and the streets reek with rain. You are indispensable, and yet you are absent ... Love sometimes seems akin to terror: a man tires suddenly at nightfall, of living enslaved to the razor at his neck. Sometimes he wrings his hands, expunging other lives from his existence. Sometimes whichever door he knocks echoes back only heartache. A screechy phonograph is playing in Fatih ... a song about some Friday long ago. I stop to listen from a vacant corner, longing to bring you an untouched sky, but time disintegrates in my hands. Whatever I do, wherever I go, you are indispensable, and yet you are absent ... Are you the blue child of June? Ah, no one knows you―no one knows! Your deserted eyes are like distant freighters ... Perhaps you are boarding in Yesilköy? Are you drenched there, shivering with the rain that leaves you blind, beset, broken, with wind-disheveled hair? Whenever I think of life seated at the wolves’ table, shameless, yet without soiling our hands ... Yes, whenever I think of life, I begin with your name, defying the silence, and your secret tides surge within me making this voyage inevitable. You are indispensable; how can you not know? Fragments by Attila Ilhan loose English translations/interpretations by Michael R. Burch *** The night is a cloudy-feathered owl, its quills like fine-spun glass. It gazes out the window, perched on my right shoulder, its wings outspread and huge. If the encroaching darkness seems devastating at first glance, the sovereign of everything, its reach infinite ... Still somewhere within a kernel of light glows secretly creating an enlightened forest of dialectics. *** In September’s waning days one thinks wanly of the arrival of fall like a ship appearing on the horizon with untrimmed, tattered sails; for some unfathomable reason fall is the time to consider one’s own demise― the body smothered by yellowed leaves like a corpse rotting in a ghoulish photograph ... *** Bitter words crack like whips snapping across prison yards ... Then there are words like pomegranate trees in bloom, words like the sun igniting the sea beyond mountainous horizons, flashing like mysterious knives ... Such words are the burning roses of an infinite imagination; they are born and they die with the flutterings of butterflies; we carry those words in our hearts like pregnant shotguns until the day we expire, martyred for the words we were prepared to die for ... *** What I wrote and what you understood? Curious and curiouser! Mehmet Akif Ersoy: Modern English Translations of Turkish Poems Mehmet Âkif Ersoy (1873-1936) was a Turkish poet, author, writer, academic, member of parliament, and the composer of the Turkish National Anthem. Snapshot by Mehmet Akif Ersoy loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Earth’s least trace of life cannot be erased; even when you lie underground, it encompasses you. So, those of you who anticipate the shadows, how long will the darkness remember you? Zulmü Alkislayamam "I Can’t Applaud Tyranny" by Mehmet Akif Ersoy loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I can't condone cruelty; I will never applaud the oppressor; Yet I can't renounce the past for the sake of deluded newcomers. When someone curses my ancestors, I want to strangle them, Even if you don’t. But while I harbor my elders, I refuse to praise their injustices. Above all, I will never glorify evil, by calling injustice “justice.” From the day of my birth, I've loved freedom; The golden tulip never deceived me. If I am nonviolent, does that make me a docile sheep? The blade may slice, but my neck resists! When I see someone else's wound, I suffer a great hardship; To end it, I'll be whipped, I'll be beaten. I can't say, “Never mind, just forget it!” I'll mind, I'll crush, I'll be crushed, I'll uphold justice. I'm the foe of the oppressor, the friend of the oppressed. What the hell do you mean, with your backwardness? Çanakkale Sehitlerine "For the Çanakkale Martyrs" by Mehmet Akif Ersoy loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Was there ever anything like the Bosphorus war?― The earth’s mightiest armies pressing Marmara, Forcing entry between her mountain passes To a triangle of land besieged by countless vessels. Oh, what dishonorable assemblages! Who are these Europeans, come as rapists? Who, these braying hyenas, released from their reeking cages? Why do the Old World, the New World, and all the nations of men now storm her beaches? Is it Armageddon? Truly, the whole world rages! Seven nations marching in unison! Australia goose-stepping with Canada! Different faces, languages, skin tones! Everything so different, but the mindless bludgeons! Some warriors Hindu, some African, some nameless, unknown! This disgraceful invasion, baser than the Black Death! Ah, the 20th century, so noble in its own estimation, But all its favored ones nothing but a parade of worthless wretches! For months now Turkish soldiers have been vomited up Like stomachs’ retched contents regarded with shame. If the masks had not been torn away, the faces would still be admired, But the whore called civilization is far from blameless. Now the damned demand the destruction of the doomed And thus bring destruction down on their own heads. Lightning severs horizons! Earthquakes regurgitate the bodies of the dead! Bombs’ thunderbolts explode brains, rupture the breasts of brave soldiers. Underground tunnels writhe like hell Full of the bodies of burn victims. The sky rains down death, the earth swallows the living. A terrible blizzard heaves men violently into the air. Heads, eyes, torsos, legs, arms, chins, fingers, hands, feet ... Body parts rain down everywhere. Coward hands encased in armor callously scatter Floods of thunderbolts, torrents of fire. Men’s chests gape open, Beneath the high, circling vulture-like packs of the air. Cannonballs fly as frequently as bullets Yet the heroic army laughs at the hail. Who needs steel fortresses? Who fears the enemy? How can the shield of faith not prevail? What power can make religious men bow down to their oppressors When their stronghold is established by God? The mountains and the rocks are the bodies of martyrs! ... For the sake of a crescent, oh God, many suns set, undone! Dear soldier, who fell for the sake of this land, How great you are, your blood saves the Muslims! Only the lions of Bedr rival your glory! Who then can dig the grave wide enough to hold you. and your story? If we try to consign you to history, you will not fit! No book can contain the eras you shook! Only eternities can encompass you! ... Oh martyr, son of the martyr, do not ask me about the grave: The prophet awaits you now, his arms flung wide open, to save! Sessiz Gemi (“Silent Ship”) by Yahya Kemal Beyatli loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch for the refugees The time to weigh anchor has come; a ship departing harbor slips quietly out into the unknown, cruising noiselessly, its occupants already ghosts. No flourished handkerchiefs acknowledge their departure; the landlocked mourners stand nurturing their grief, scanning the bleak horizon, their eyes blurring ... Poor souls! Desperate hearts! But this is hardly the last ship departing! There is always more pain to unload in this sorrowful life! The hesitations of lovers and their belovèds are futile, for they cannot know where the vanished are bound. Many hopes must be quenched by the distant waves, since years must pass, and no one returns from this journey. Full Moon by Yahya Kemal Beyatli loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch You are so lovely the full moon just might delight in your rising, as curious and bright, to vanquish night. But what can a mortal man do, dear, but hope? I’ll ponder your mysteries and (hmmmm) try to cope. We both know you have every right to say no. The Music of the Snow by Yahya Kemal Beyatli loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch This melody of a night lasting longer than a thousand years! This music of the snow supposed to last for thousand years! Sorrowful as the prayers of a secluded monastery, It rises from a choir of a hundred voices! As the organ’s harmonies resound profoundly, I share the sufferings of Slavic grief. My mind drifts far from this city, this era, To the old records of Tanburi Cemil Bey. Now I’m suddenly overjoyed as once again I hear, With the ears of my heart, the purest sounds of Istanbul! Thoughts of the snow and darkness depart me; I keep them at bay all night with my dreams! Translator’s notes: “Slavic grief” because Beyatli wrote this poem while in Warsaw, serving as Turkey’s ambassador to Poland, in 1927. Tanburi Cemil Bey was a Turkish composer. Thinking of you by Nazim Hikmet loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Thinking of you is beautiful, hopeful― like listening to the most beautiful songs sung by the earth's most beautiful voices. But hope is insufficient for me now; I don't want to listen to songs. I want to sing love into birth. I love you by Nazim Hikmet loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch I love you― like dipping bread into salt and eating; like waking at night with a raging fever and thirstily lapping up water, my mouth to the silver tap; like unwrapping the unwieldy box the postman delivers, unable to guess what's inside, feeling fluttery, happy, doubtful. I love you― like flying over the sea the first time as something stirs within me while the sky softly darkens over Istanbul. I love you― as men thank God gratefully for life. Sparrow by Nazim Hikmet loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Little sparrow, perched on the clothesline, do you regard me with pity? Even so, I will watch you soar away through the white spring leaves. The Divan of the Lover the oldest extant Turkish poem loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch All the universe as one great sign is shown: God revealed in his creative acts unknown. Who sees or understands them, jinn or men? Such works lie far beyond mere mortals’ ken. Nor can man’s mind or reason reach that strand, Nor mortal tongue name Him who rules that land. Since He chose nothingness with life to vest, who dares to trouble God with worms’ behests? For eighteen thousand worlds, lain end to end, Do not with Him one atom's worth transcend! Fragment by Prince Jem loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch Behold! The torrent, dashing against the rocks, flails wildly. The entire vast realm of Space and Being oppresses my soul idly. Through bitterness of grief and woe the sky has rent its morning robe. Look! See how in its eastern palace, the sun is a bloody globe! The clouds of heaven rain bright tears on the distant mountain peaks. Oh, hear how the deeply wounded thunder slowly, mournfully speaks! Keywords/Tags: Turkish, poetry, translations, Turkey, Attila Ilhan, Ersoy, Beyatli, Nazim Hikmet, Prince Jem, Divan, Istanbul, mrbtran Published as the collection "Turkish Poetry Translations"

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