From This Bridge: Contemporary Turkish Women Poets, fourth selection

Broken Windows

we’re hopeful migrants

we pitch our tents in the open

now open your arms

a bird multiplies in air

we’re a raised voice

we rise with our eyelashes wet

put your arms around me

it’s love that rears the day

our eyes and brows cast down

walk now through roses, sweat

(windows broken

you can’t take me away from sorrow

it’s only for you that I cry)

a bird multiplies in air

my eyes overrun my eyes

I’d have been as mute as stone, but for you.

Leyla Şahin

Trans. George Messo

From This Bridge: Contemporary Turkish Women Poets

Conversation Paperpress, 2010

From the Bridge: Contemporary Turkish Women Poets, third selection

People

Small homes between earth and sky

rooms murmuring, windows ajar

pots and pans, chairs, a worn out table

tiny habits, and stale tastes

a handful of dust, an afternoon shadow

and time sitting back on its corner seat

between walls known to each other

what possessions, what anguish, what little love

a fragment of salt picked from the sea, from the sun

a carefree feeling, a kiss, a laugh

whispers, vapour of flowers in the vase

and in the moments’ haste

the pervasive smell of death

a mass of souls between earth and sky

a goblet of rage, an ocean of grief

screams, pleas, profound silence

and through the veins of these small houses

pulsing and flowing

and flowing on

this longing for life

Ayten Mutlu

Trans. George Messo

From This Bridge: Contemporary Turkish Women Poets

Conversation Paperpress, 2010

From the Bridge: Contemporary Turkish Women Poets, second selection

September in Demetevler Park II

The last swallows will leave this city

Boredom will stream out, old age

Tired from the weight of summer on its back

Demetevler Park

with its colored poles and benches will fade.

My shaky, incompetent steps

As if shamed by their womanhood

—really why when we walk alone

do we frown

and stare at the floor.

Zerrin Taşpınar

Trans. George Messo

From This Bridge: Contemporary Turkish Women Poets

Conversation Paperpress, 2010

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