Translation Review - The University of Texas at Dallas

poet, in a very inclusionary experience. This characteristic
of Second New literature can be seen to be
part of its wish to produce a formal, language-driven,
imagistic poetry without narrative and traditional
structure. Each of these features particular to this
poem represents an aspect of the Second New movement
that situates this poem within the greater landscape
of Turkish literature and that, when not preserved
in translation, removes the aspects that define
it as a poem belonging to this tradition and as a
work of this prolific poet.
Conclusion
Recalling Lawrence Venuti’s cautionary words
above, “Translation wields enormous power in constructing
representations of foreign cultures,” this
study has attempted to show to what extent such
power is wielded in the case of Turkish literature.
When we are faced with a literary tradition that is
represented in a limited canon in English translation
and when the work of translation itself is done by a
handful of translators, our evaluation and commentaries
on such translations become critical. In the
absence of other translator “voices” producing multiple
translations of the same work, and in the presence
of a dominant translator, it is very easy to
imagine a scenario in which the texts chosen and
translated by that one translator gain canonic status,
whether intended or not, in effect forming the primary,
if not the sole, reference of what the Turkish
literary landscape is. Rather than its seeming an
apocalyptic premonition, I hope that this study has
revealed the necessity for those of us who use translations
in our studies and classes to consider these
facts when bringing a less widely disseminated literature
to an English-speaking audience.
The Rose
At the center of the rose
Weeping nightly
At the center of the street
Dying
No longer recognizing my front or my back
Listening lessening
In the darkness
Your eyes holding me
On foot
Your hands I take in mine
Loving until sun
Rise
So white your hands again white and white
I fear your hands so white
At the station a train
A while
Sometimes I
Am a man who cannot find the station
I take the rose in my hand
Spread across my face
However
Fallen to the street
Breaking my arm and wing
There is blood there is chaos there is a call
And at the edge of the bugle a gypsy a new
Notes
1 Venuti, Lawrence. The Translator’s Invisibility: A
History of Translation. Routledge, London and
New York: 1995. p. 1.
2 Translations, unless
.
otherwise noted, are my own.
3 Bezirci, Asım. Ikinci Yeni Olayı [The Second New
Movement]. Evrensel Publishers, Istanbul:
1996.
.
p. 9.
“Ikinci Yeni 1954’ten sonra filizlenmeye baslayan .
bir siir hareketidir. Öncüleri Oktay Rifat, Ilhan
Berk, Turgut Uyar, Edip Cansever, Cemal Süreya,
Sezai Karakoç, Ece Ayhan, Ülkü Tamer, Tevfik
Akdag,
.
Yılmaz Gruda gibi sairlerdir. Harekete
“Ikinci Yeni” adını elestirmen Muzaffer Erdost
takmıstir. Gerçi yanlıs bir adlandırmadır bu.
Çünkü, siirimizin Tanzimat’tan beri geçirdigi
. ˘
yenilik olayları göz önünde tutulursa, Ikinci
Yeni’ye ancak
.
“Sekizinci Yeni” demek uygun
düser. Ama Ikinci Yeni bir yönüyle Garip akamına
(Birinci Yeni’ye) tepki olarak dogdugu ˘ ˘ ve sık sık
tekrarlandıgı için bu ad yerlesir.”
4 Ibid. p. 13. “Gelenekten Kopma.”
5 Ibid. p. 13. “ölçüsüz bir öztürkçecilige yönelirler.”
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