(Born Nicosia, Cyprus, 1958)
Mehmet Yashin is one of Cyprus’s most internationally acclaimed poets. He has been at the vanguard of multilingual literature since his landmark critical study of Cypriot, Greek, and Turkish literature, Step-Mothertongue (Middlesex University Press, 2000). His own writing draws on the multilingual Levantine tradition he remembers from his grandmother, who mingled the Turkish and Greek alphabets, languages, and cultures in everyday life. Though his work has only recently begun to be read in Greece, translated by Z. D. Ainalis (p. 221), it has won many awards in Turkey and the UK and his poetry and novels have been translated into more than twenty languages; the first selection of his poetry, Don’t Go Back to Kyrenia, was chosen for translation by the British Centre for Literary Translation. He lives and teaches in Nicosia, crossing the green line daily.
Don’t Go Back to Kyrenia, Middlesex University Press, 2001; Wartime, The Happy Dragons’ Press, 2007; Άγγελοι Εκδικητές (Revenge Angels), Vakxikon.gr, 2015.
Kaybetmesem bulamayacaktım
Ωλμεγεν π· ιρ Ο
Annem zamansız ölmese gerekmeyecekti onu canlandırmam
ve babamı fark bile etmeyecektim hayatımdan çıkmasa . . .
(Yokedilmek istendiği için varolabilen bir eve doğdum ben
böylece Kutsal Topraklarımız oldu işgal altındaki o lanet yer.)
Hiçbirşey kaybetmeyen bunu da başka türlü okuyacak
ve anladığ’nı sanacak, kalpten okunmadıkça anlaşılabilirmiş gibi şiir.
Uçan kuşların kanat çırpması devam ettikçe bakışlarınızda
boş kalan dallara her baktığınızda, devam eder şiir de.
Ama kendi sınırlarımı belki hiç aşamayacaktım
ilk şiir cennetimden zorla sınırdışı edilmemiş olsaydım.
Şimdi anlıyorum ki, şairler çok iyiliğini görürmüş kötülüklerin,
dilsizliğin bir de ve ellerinden alınmış bütün o şeylerin –
Sonsuza dek kaybedilmiş . . . bir şiir olarak bulunsun diye
πυραδα.
If I had not lost it I would not have found it
Ωλμεγεν πιρ Ο
If my mother hadn’t died so young, I wouldn’t have to call her back to life,
and I wouldn’t even have noticed my father, if he hadn’t gone away . . .
I was born to a house which was there only to be ransacked later,
and thus, under occupation, that accursed abode became our Holy Land.
He who never lost anything will give this a different interpretation,
believing he grasps it all, as if you could comprehend poetry
without hearing it read from the depths of the heart.
As the flapping wings of birds in their flight persist in your eyes,
so does a poem whenever you gaze at the bare branches of trees.
But perhaps I would never have crossed the bounds of my inner self,
if I hadn’t been exiled from that primordial paradise of poetry.
I now realize that poets glean much goodness from evil deeds,
from being dumb, from watching their possessions being pillaged –
lost for good, for ever, only to be recovered a lot later, as a poem.
Πυραδα.
Taner Baybars
You can tell by the way she moves her curly hair
whether she is in a good mood or not –
Not. Yapabileceğin birşey de yok.
Aya’ucunda yürü, dokunma bir yere,
eşyalar kırılmak için sıraya girmiş. You too
have to be brave now, no, you don’t need to be . . .
Call your double to play
this role. Ezberleyemedin gitti,
ciddiye alıyorsun üstelik oyundaki her sözü –
Ayağın kaymayagörsün. Behind the plastic curtains
two shadows showering, shrinking bellies,
hearts, legs . . . Şekillerin ani değişimi
gölge-oyunundaki gibi shivering giant shapes
all of a sudden kesik kesik su sesi . . . Susss
sözcükler haz’r’olda yaylımateş için sana –
Bodies are wet but the soul
dried up boşaltılmış bir evde. Cıvıltısı uçmuş
kuş, y ı l a n ı n y u t t u ğ u d i l . . .
Yatağa uzanırken delik deşik iniltiyle,
kemiklerimmm τι κούραση θεε μου, diyorsun.
Kimse yanıtlamıyor: Έλα ψυχή μου, geçmiş zaman
ruhu. Çürüyen beden.
Dalgalı saçlarını savuruşundan anlarsın
keyfi yerinde mi değil mi-
Değil. And there is nothing you can do.
Tiptoe . . . Don’t touch anything,
the objects form an orderly queue
to be broken. Sen de cesur ol o halde
yok şart değil,
dublörünü çağır o oynasın bu rolü. You still
have not learned your lines by heart
and still take every single word so seriously.
A slip of your feet. Plastik perdenin arkasında
iki gölge, duş yapıyorlar, büzüşmüş karınları
kalpleri, bacakları . . . An instant change of figures
like in a shadow-play titreyen dev şekiller
ve birden stuttering sound of water . . . Shhhh . . .
The word-squad in attention to shoot you
Gövdeler ıslak ama ruh
kupkuru in a forsaken house. The bird staring as
the song flies away, the tongue
swallowed b y t h e s n a k e . . .
As you lay yourself on bed, with a pierced moan
my boooones. Gott, was ist das für eine müdigkeit, you mutter
No one answers: Komm, meine Seele, mein hertz. The soul of
time begone. Body de-composing.
Bariş Pirhasan