Translation Review - The University of Texas at Dallas

Notes on Translated Writers
Gülten Akın is Turkeyʼs outstanding woman poet. She
studied law and worked as an attorney in several small
Anatolian towns. She now lives in Ankara. In the words
of Feyyaz Kayacan Fergar, “She has a calm, strong voice,
deeply embedded in the sinewy language of ordinary
people, in the sad and joyful songs that form the treasury
of Turkeyʼs folk culture” (from Modern Turkish Poetry,
Feyyaz Kayacan Fergar, ed., The Rockingham Press,
1992). Her poetry, deeply invested in social responsibility,
includes the collections Rüzgar Saati (Hour of the Wind,
1956); Kestim Kara Saçlarımı (I Cut My Dark Hair,
1960); Ağıtlar ve Türküler (Elegies and Folk Songs,
1976); İlahiler (Hymns, 1983); and Sessiz Arka Bahçeler
(Silent Back Yards, 1998). She won the Turkish Language
Association award for poetry in 1961 and 1971 and the
Sedat Simavi Literature Award in 1992.
Enis Batur is a Turkish author who has published over
twenty volumes of poems, essays, and criticism. He has
been translated into French, Italian, and Persian. Among
other awards he has received Italyʼs Sibilla Aleramo prize
and was featured at the Rotterdam International Poetry
Festival of 1998. Some of his poetic collections include
Eros ve Hgades (Eros and Hgades) and Bir Ortaçağ
Yalnızlığı (A Medieval Solitude), both 1973; Tuğralar
(Monograms, 1984); and Sarnıç (Cistern, 1985). The
poems here are from his Gri Divan (The Grey Divan),
published in 1990.
İlhan Berk was a leading fi gure in the “Second New”
generation of Turkish poets and has been a force in the
modernization of Turkish poetry. His poetry strives to
synthesize the Western and Eastern traditions, drawing
upon mythology, history, geography, and the visual arts
with a modern, and often postmodern, affect. He graduated
from the French Department at the Ankara Gazi Training
Institute and taught school for ten years. He was the
recipient of the Turkish Language Association Poetry
Award in 1979 for Kül (Ash), the Behçet Necatigil Poetry
Award in 1980 for İstanbul Kitabı (Book of Istanbul) and
the Yeditepe Poetry Prize in 1983.
Edip Cansever (d. 1985) was a leading member, along
with Turgut Uyar, Cemal Süreya, Ece Ayhan and others,
of what was called the Ikinci Yeni or “Second New”
movement, which revolutionized Turkish poetry in the
1950s and 60s, making poetry both more realistic and
more imaginative, through the infl uence of Surrealism
and Existentialism. His collection Yerçekimli Karanfi l
(Gravitational Carnation) won the Yeditepe Poetry
Award for 1957. Other collections include Nerde Antigone
(Whereʼs Antigone, 1961), Tragedyalar (Tragedies, 1964),
and Şairin Seyir Defteri (Logbook of the Poet, 1980). He
inherited from his father a furniture shop in the Covered
Bazaar in Istanbul, where he worked for most of his life.
Cevat Çapan studied English literature at Cambridge and
is currently a professor of English language and literature
at Istanbul University. He translates deftly from English,
American and Greek poets. His own poetry has appeared
in the collections Dön Güvercin Dön (Return of the Dove),
winner of the 1986 Behcet Necatigil Poetry Award; Doğal
Tarih (Natural History, 1989); Sevda Yaratan (Creator of
Love, 1994).
Mehmet Çetin served a long prison term after the 1980
coup. His poetry collections include Rüzgar ve Gül İklimi
(Season of Winds and Roses, 1988); Birağızdan (In Unison,
1989); Eylül Çiçekleri (September Blossoms, 1990);
Hatıradır, Yak Bu Fotoğrafı (Burn This Photo, It Is a
Keepsake, 1995); and Aşkkıran (Love-Breaker, 1997). Çetin
is the winner of the 1988 Enver Gökçe Poetry Award.
Haydar Ergülen studied at Middle East Technical
University and currently works as a creative director in an
advertising agency. His major poetry collections include
Sokak Prensesi (Street Princess, 1991); Eskiden Terzi
(Once a Tailor), winner of the 1996 Halil Kocagöz Poetry
Award; 40 Şiir ve Bir (40 Poems and One, 1997); and
Karton Valiz (Cardboard Suitcase, 1999).
Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu (d. 1975) taught painting at the
Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul and is one of Turkeyʼs
best-known contemporary painters. His poetry, which
evokes the visual arts of Anatolia, broke away from the
“perfect line” of the classical poets to look for fresh, bold
images. His major collections include Yaradana Mektuplar
(Letters to the Creator, 1941); Karadut (Black Mulberries,
1948); Tuz (Salt, 1952); Dördü Birden (All Four Together,
1956), which combines all his previous poetry plus new
poems; and Karadut 69 (Black Mulberries 69, 1969).
Translation Review 83