& Silk & Love & Flame E-Book

Birhan Keskin

• Herausgeber: Arc Publications
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 54

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Birhan Keskin's poetry is finely-honed, powerful in its visuals, evocative and exact. Fluid and elusive, her poems explore the space between understanding and remembering, testimony and invention. This book selects work from six of Keskin's books, including her prize-winning collection Ba, and George Messo's outstanding translation enables us to appreciate to the full the work of this exceptional poet. Introduced by Bloodaxe poet and playwright Amanda Dalton. Birhan Keskin was born in Kırklareli, Turkey, in 1963. Her first poems began to appear in 1984. She has published seven collections of poetry in Turkish, including Ba, which won Turkey's prestigious Golden Orange Award in 2005. George Messo is a poet, translator, and editor. His translation of Ilhan Berk's A Leaf About to Fall: Selected Poems (Salt, 2006) was shortlisted for the Popescu European Translation Prize in 2006. His translations of Keskin's poetry have already appeared in Shearsman. This book is also available as an ebook: buy it from Amazon here.

Leseprobe

& Silk & Love & Flame

Published by Arc Publications

Nanholme Mill, Shaw Wood Road

Todmorden OL14 6DA, UK

www.arcpublications.co.uk Original poems by Birhan Keskin © Birhan Keskin and Metis Yayınları, Istanbul 2013

Translation copyright © George Messo 2013

Introduction copyright © Amanda Dalton 2013 Design by Tony Ward

Printed in Great Britain by the MPG Books Group, Bodmin & King’s Lynn 978 1904614 57 9 (pbk)

978 1906570 51 4 (hbk)

978 1906570 40 8 (ebook)Acknowledgements

Poems in this collection have been selected from

Kim Bağışlayacak Beni

(Istanbul: Metis Yayınları, 1994, 1996, 2002, 2005)

Ba(Istanbul: Metis Yayınları, 2005)

and are reproduced by kind permission of the publishers. The translator would like to thank the editors of the following journals and magazines in which some of these translations first appeared:Absinthe: New European Writing, Calque, Green Integer Review, Metamorphoses, Near East Review, Shearsman Magazine, Turkish Book Review, Turntable / Bluelight(online) andWords without Borders.

He would also like particularly to thank Liz Amado who gave her time so generously in correcting his first drafts and whose many suggestions are now part of this book. Cover photo: Birhan Keskin Arc Publications gratefully acknowledges financial support for this book from the Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Culture & Tourism (TEDA). This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part of this book may take place without the written permission of Arc Publications.

Arc Publications: ‘Visible Poets’ series

Editor: Jean Boase-Beier

BİRHAN

KESKİN

& Silk & Love & Flame

Translated by

George MessoIntroduced by

Amanda Dalton

2013

CONTENTS

Series Editor’s Note

Translator’s Preface

Introduction

fromBA(2005)

Eziyet

•

Torment

Hüzzam

•

Melody

İncir

•

Fig

Kesif Su

•

Dense Water

Afrika

•

Africa

Ferah Ayini

•

Rite of Ferah

Yelpaze

•

Fan

Ankara

•

Ankara

Nehir Manzarası

•

River View

Fiyort

•

Fjord

Vaziyet

•

State of Affair

Koyu Kıvam

•

High Density

Güneş… Yıldız

•

Sun… Star

fromYERYÜZÜ HALLERİ/STATES OF THE EARTH(2002)

Zümrüdüanka

•

Phoenix

Balık

•

Fish

Dağ

•

Mountain

Ova

•

Plain

Buzul

•

Glacier

Göl

•

Lake

Deniz

•

Sea

Çöl

•

Desert

İncir

•

Fig

Yolcu

•

Traveller

Kapı

•

Door

from20 LAK TABLET/20 POLISHED TABLETS(1999)

Enstrümantal

•

Instrumental

Penguen

•

Penguin

Nar

•

Pomegranate Dream

Yaprak

•

Leaf

Huzur

•

Tranquility

Tünel

•

Tunnel

Su

•

Water

Yolcunun Siyah Bavulu

•

The Traveller’s Black Suitcase

fromCİNAYETKIŞI/WINTER OF MURDER(1996)

Dua

•

Prayer

Baldamlası

•

Honeydrop

Zaman

•

Time

Cinayet Kışı

•

Winter of Murder

Kaktüs and Teksas

•

Cactus and Texas

Mağara Çiçeği

•

Cave Flower

fromBAKARSIN ÜZGÜN DÖNERİM/I MAYRETURN UNHAPPILY(1994)

Ve İpek ve Aşk ve Alev

•

& Silk & Love & Flame

fromDELİLİRİKLER/CRAZY LYRICS (1991)

Delilirikler I

•

Crazy Lyrics I

Delilirikler II

•

Crazy Lyrics II

Apollon I

•

Apollo I

Apollon II

•

Apollo II

Biographical Notes

Series Editor’s Note

The ‘Visible Poets’ series was established in 2000, and set out to challenge the view that translated poetry could or should be read without regard to the process of translation it had undergone. Since then, things have moved on. Today there is more translated poetry available and more debate on its nature, its status, and its relation to its original. We know that translated poetry is neither English poetry that has mysteriously arisen from a hidden foreign source, nor is it foreign poetry that has silently rewritten itself in English. We are more aware that translation lies at the heart of all our cultural exchange; without it, we must remain artistically and intellectually insular.

One of the aims of the series was, and still is, to enrich our poetry with the very best work that has appeared elsewhere in the world. And the poetry-reading public is now more aware than it was at the start of this century that translation cannot simply be done by anyone with two languages. The translation of poetry is a creative act, and translated poetry stands or falls on the strength of the poet-translator’s art. For this reason ‘Visible Poets’publishes only the work of the best translators, and gives each of them space, in a Preface, to talk about the trials and pleasures of their work.

From the start, ‘Visible Poets’ books have been bilingual. Many readers will not speak the languages of the original poetry but they, too, are invited to compare the look and shape of the English poems with the originals. Those who can are encouraged to read both. Translation and original are presented side-by-side because translations do not displace the originals; they shed new light on them and are in turn themselves illuminated by the presence of their source poems. By drawing the readers’ attention to the act of translation itself, it is the aim of these books to make the work of both the original poets and their translators more visible.

Jean Boase-Beier

Translators’ Preface

In the spring of 2004 I was on the verge of leaving Ankara for Riyadh. I’d been cleaning out my shelves and stumbled on a yellowing copy ofKitap, a weekly books supplement belonging to the Turkish daily newspaperRadikal. In it I came across a review ofYeryüzü Halleriby Birhan Keskin. I not only knew the author’s name, I even had the book. Two days earlier I’d packed it into a small box, unread, ready for shipping. It had sat on my shelf, undisturbed, for nearly two years.

That random re-encounter inKitapformed the catalyst of what was to become& Silk & Love & Flame. Over the next two years I sought out and read everything I could by or about Birhan Keskin. In 2005 the Istanbul publishing house Metis made the job easier when they reprinted all of Birhan’s five early collections under one cover, asKim Bağışlayacak Beni. Then, in the following year, Birhan won Turkey’s prestigious Golden Orange Award for a new book,Ba