From a new anthology of contemporary Turkish women poets, first selection

This is my first selection from the new anthology, From This Bridge: Contemporary Turkish Women Poets, edited and translated by George Messo. Thanks to the publisher for bringing this book to my attention and allowing me to reprint poems here.

The New Bremen Harmonica Players

Why does the streetlamp lighting wet asphalt

Bring to mind a far off city

Gothic cities

Weighed down by winter and foreignness

And hotel rooms

Growing narrower in the middle of the night

A language that cracks like a whip

A thousand assorted things

And festive lights that estrange you

--Am I so far away from my home

If I fall will someone pick me up

Or will they first ask my identity--

Cold droplets on your brow

And the calling card getting wet in your hand

You seek a familiar word in the hoardings

Walk on keep your strangeness unsensed

Your residence papers will do you no good

You’re in the city of your birth

Sennur Sezer

Trans. George Messo

From This Bridge: Contemporary Turkish Women Poets

Conversation Paperpress, 2010