Orhan Veli Kanık (1914—1950), more commonly known as Orhan Veli, was a pioneering Turkish modernist poet and one of the founding members of the Garip (Strange) movement. The five short books published in his lifetime revolutionized modern Turkish poetry. He died, unexpectedly, aged 36, leaving behind an impressive body of work, published posthumously in his Collected Poems.
George Messo is a poet, editor and teacher, and a leading translator of Turkish poetry. His many books include From the Pine Observatory (2000), Entrances (2006), and Hearing Still (2009), as well as two books in Turkish: Aradaki Ses (The In-between Voice, 2005) and Avrupa’nın Küçük Tanrıları (The Little Gods of Europe, 2007). His translations include İlhan Berk’s A Leaf about to Fall: Selected Poems (2006), Madrigals (2008), and Berk’s epic poetic trilogy The Book of Things (2009). His anthologies include İkinci Yeni: The Turkish Avant-Garde (2009) and From This Bridge: Contemporary Turkish Women Poets (2010). He has twice been shortlisted for the Popescu European Poetry Translation Prize, and was a Hawthornden Fellow in poetry during 2002. His critical study, Into the Labyrinth: Essays on Modern Turkish Poetry, is forthcoming. Messo is the former editor of Near East Review and in 2008 he was elected a Fellow of The Royal Asiatic Society.
Winter 2011
Table of Contents - Vol. VII, No. 3
Poetry Fiction Translations Reviews
Orhan Veli Kanik
Two book-length selections of Orhan Veli’s poems have been published in English. The poems below will appear in the first full collection of translations of Orhan Veli’s Complete Poems, due in 2014 to celebrate the centenary of the poet’s birth.
See what happens when you don’t hear
The pistachio splitting apart on the branch,
Just see what happens.
See what happens, if you don’t hear this rain
Or the tolling bell or the man talking,
See what happens if you don’t smell the seaweed
Or the lobster, the shrimp,
Blowing in wind from the sea...
This beautiful weather has ruined me,
It was in weather like this I quit
My job with the office of Pious Foundations.
I got used to smoking in weather like this
And it was in just such weather I fell in love.
It was in weather like this I forgot
To take home bread and salt
Always in this kind of weather
I relapse into my poetry-writing disease.
This beautiful weather has ruined me.
What didn’t we do for this motherland!
Some of us died;
Some gave speeches.
© George Messo
Bir Duyma Da Gör
Bir duyma da gürültüsünü
Dallarda çıtırdayarak açılan fıstıkların,
Gör bak ne oluyorsun.
Bir duyma da gör şu yağan yağmuru;
Çalan çanı, konuşan insanı.
Bir duyma da kokusunu yosunların,
İstakozun, karidesin,
Denizden esen rüzgârın...
Beni bu güzel havalar mahvetti,
Böyle havada istifa ettim
Evkaftaki memuriyetimden.
Tütüne böyle havada alıştım,
Böyle havada âşık oldum;
Eve ekmekle tuz götürmeyi
Böyle havalarda unuttum;
Şiir yazma hastalığım
Hep böyle havalarda nüksetti;
Beni bu güzel havalar mahvetti.
Neler yapmadık şu vatan için!
Kimimiz öldük;
Kimimiz nutuk söyledik.
