from the article:
I
I think of that war the one chasing us all in all the ways to chase. “It’s time to forget” the delicate doves have told us… But what do doves know of the taste of blood, of the smell of mid-night screams? What do they know, If they wake up in their nests, and mankind in a ditch?
from the article:
Isle of Mine
With words that sing With words that weep With this long dismal wailing At the world’s edge of days And this penumbra Big as the hills With the muffled tam-tam Of our plains, before dawn With these words of hope And those of agony
I see you again, isle of mine.
With words that laugh And the blood spilt With the restless wind psalm-singing secrets With the dead wave And the moon’s mourning With the vast field of a singing assembly¹ of stars Sweeping away the misfortune of former time lost.
I see you again, isle of mine.
With your hot sand And the rumors of the night With the widowed hours of the _tic-tac of the pendulums with your name more beautiful than a pearl of sun resting upon the archipelago There, beneath sky’s blue
I see you again, isle of mine. With your hot sand With your dead wave With the widowed hours of the tic-tac of pendulums.
¹ Cumbite: An informal cooperative group of Haitians helping a neighbor get work done to the accompaniment of drumming and singing.
from the article:
video
in the last footage taken of the prime minister you can see him happy toying with his whip in the aromatic breeze off the flowering garden his hands—open like boards—slowed the landscape’s languid movement and his rough laughter put flocks of nightingales to flight
in the distance on the lake’s edge spoiled crocodiles with open jaws spurned the mutilated bodies of a few prisoners and their families
farther off the resplendent sun
from the article:
That photo in black and white
Emma posed with her black sequined dress
with make-up and can-cans next to the television.
No one told her then the future would be a little house gown, the noise of the news.
Just that.
from the article:
unheimlich II
heap of words shell of silk and grit
page located between night and wildfire
small catastrophe of corners door knobs, broken windows
blood and feathers
hunger
I see so many straight lines angles walls fences rectangular windows
rooms inside with more square angles corners made of vectors leading nowhere
but the thing is I am hungry
I am hungry for sinuous round sinewed lines of muscle and feather
I am hungry for voluptuous creamy mounds of earth sand and flesh
I am hungry for unruly expanses of unbound sound spilling over ponds singing clouds
I am hungry for layered tufts of silk and pistils quivering quills and lines of rain that don’t stop moving when they reach my skin
I am hungry and I am unstoppable
I am hungry and my hunger is boundless and irreverent
I am hungry and I am done with your merciless greed your colorblind rules and walls
I am hungry and I am multitudes of possibility and infinite breath and light
I am hungry do not stand in my way
from the article:
Intimate
You want to study the night of my spirit There, in the pit of my soul the place never reached by the clear sunlight of hope
But don’t ask me what sleeps beneath the veil of speechless shade; stop beside the abyss, and weep as if by the edge of a grave
from the article:
The Old Indians
The old men, very old, are sitting down beside their goats, beside their small tame animals.
The old men are sitting down beside a river that flows always very slowly.
Before them, the air stops its march; It drifts by, contemplating them; touching them, carefully so as not to crush, hearts made of ash
The old men take their sins out to pasture; this is their only job. They let them run wild during the day, and the day they spend forgetting, In the evening they set them free to sleep beside them, keeping warm.
from the article:
The Primitive Customs of the Hummingbird [Excerpt]
I
Our First Father, the Absolute, emerged from the middle of the first darkness.
II
The divine soles of feet, the small round seat, he created, in the middle of the first darkness, in the course of his own evolution.
III
The divine wisdom’s reflection [eyes], the divine, all-hearing [ears], the divine palms of the hand with the insignia rod, the divine palms of the hands with the florid branches [toes, fingers, and nails], Ñamanduí created them all in the course of his own evolution, in the middle of the first darkness.
IV
Upon the divine crown, atop the sublime head, over the plumed headdress, flowers were drops of dew. And between the flowers of that celestially feathered headdress, the first bird—the hummingbird—flittered and fluttered.
V
Meanwhile, our First Father created—in the course of his own evolution—his own divine flesh, existing amid the first winds; before having conceived of his future earthly abode, before having conceived of his future firmament, his future earth first emerging, while the hummingbird filled his beak with water; and alone sustained Ñumanduí with fruits of paradise.
VI
[And] Our Father Ñumanduí, the First, before having created his future paradise, in the course of his own evolution, saw no darkness: though the Sun was not yet made, he stood illuminated by the reflection of his own heart, as divinity-encased wisdom played the part of private sun.
VII
[Then] the true Father Ñumanduí, the First, existed amid the first winds, where the owl, pausing to rest, wove the darkness; [And] turned the night into a nest, [sic]
from the article:
Shakespeare Imitation [Excerpt]
Tomorrow, yes, tomorrow. And then another day! And after that, another follows, Running, full force Toward the oblivion of an immense eternity So go the fleeting hours! In a measured and monotonous track, Lighting the path to ‘all-forgotten’ Toward which, pitiful humanity races forever.
A day just arrived and it has vanished: Ephemeral as the next; As eternal time continues, Throwing into nothingness what it has barely crafted. And man, mysterious guest Of death’s daft feast, goes by in vain Imperceptible grain of sand, That desert winds pick up.
[…]
[And] in the [aged, time] does death anxiously invoke; That fateful shadow friend, Who, stretching out a cold, practiced hand, Guides mortals to the final asylum. Oh existence! Fugue of light Or better yet, sad shade, vain and vagrant; Like an actor who makes himself up In a fugitive hour of pleasure.
To whom all listen in the moment; Who in an instant grows haughty, And who past this, disappears Into obscurity. You are like the tale an idiot Tells in the turbulent grips of madness; Full of sound, and fury and motion!… Trapping, only, a vague darkness!
from the article:
Ego Sum
Neither mother of Pearl’s complexion, nor locks of gold Shall you see, like finery, adorning my frame; neither sapphire’s light, celestial and pure, trapped and shining, in the pit of my eyes
With the toasted skin of a sun-tanned moor, with the dark eyes of fatal blackness, from Ancón to dark green skirts I was born before a sonorous Pacific sea.
I am a son of sea…because in my soul There are, like upon waves, nights of calm, and indefinable, nameless rages
an urgency to fight with myself, when in recondite grief, I sink into the abyss thinking I am only sea, cut into the shape of a man
from the article:
Nine Monsters
And, unfortunately, pain grows in the world all the time, grows, thirty minutes every second, step by step, and the nature of pain, is pain twice over and the condition of martyrdom, carnivorous, voracious, it’s pain twice over and the function of the purest herb, pain twice, over, and the good of being, to hurt us twice over.
Never, kin of mine, humankind, was there ever so much pain, in the chest, on the lapels, inside the purse, in the cup, in the butcher shop, in the arithmetic! Never so much painful affection, Never has so far hit so close, Never fire, ever played better dead, bitter cold! Never, Mr. Minister of Health, was health more deadly nor did the migraine steal so much foresight from the forehead! And the furniture, in its basket-casket cabinet, pain, in the heart, in its basket-casket cabinet, pain, the lizard, in its basket-casket cabinet, pain.
Despair grows, humankind, kin of mine, faster than the machine, ten machines at a time, and it grows with Rousseau’s red beef, with our beards; evil grows for unknown reasons and becomes a flood of its own juices, with its own mud and cloud of brick! It inverts the suffering positions, puts on a show wherein liquid humor rises vertically from the pavement the eye is seen, this ear is heard, and this ear tolls nine times on the hour of lightning and laughter, on the hour of wheat, nine songs sing soprano on the hour of weeping, nine hummed hymns on the hour of hunger, and nine thunders and nine whips, minus one scream.
Pain gets a hold of us, kin of mine, humankind, by the scruff, by the profile, drives us crazy in the cinemas, nails us to the gramophone, un-nails us from the bed, falls perpendicularly, atop our tickets, atop our letters; and it’s terrible to suffer, one can pray… For it ends up being that from pain, some are born, some grow, some die, and some who are born but do not die, and some who are neither born nor buried (the majority). And it also ends up being that from suffering, I am grieved to the top of my head, and even more to just below my ankle from seeing bread, crucified, the turnip blood-soaked, crying, the onion, most grain ground down, to flour, so throw dust in the salt, as water flees and in the wine, an ecce-homo, so pale is the snow, beneath a sunburnt sun!
How then, kin of mine, humankind, not to say that I can’t and I can’t with all the bushels and baskets of cabinet-caskets, with so many minutes, with so many lizards and so many inversions, so very far and so very bad this thirst for thirst! Mr. Minister of Health: what to do? Ah! Unfortunately, humankind, There is, kin of mine, a lot to do.
from the article:
An Istanbul court on Sept. 18 held the first hearing of author Yavuz Ekinci on "terrorism propaganda" charges for his novel Dreams Divided (Rüyası Bölünenler) published in 2014.
The trial began with the attendance of many authors and civil society representatives.
In his defense, Ekinci rejected all charges and drew attention to the conditions leading to the banning of his book.
"Dreams Divided is the story of my home, my people, my village, my country. It is the story of those who wait endlessly by the window, in front of the TV, for news of their sons, daughters, or fathers. Whether you call them Saturday Mothers or Diyarbakır Families, Dreams Divided tells the story of this land,” he explained.
Ekinci continued, “What troubles me the most in this case, and what I’ve tried to understand since I first heard about it, is the mindset of the person who reported my novel to the Presidential communication system CİMER on the night of the second day of the massive Feb. 6 earthquake.”
“Amidst this horror, on the night of Feb. 7, someone took the time to report my novel to CİMER, accusing me of terror propaganda. While I felt ashamed even to sit, eat, or talk during those days, someone reported my book, thinking they were being patriotic,” the author said.
Ekinci held that his novel was a work of fiction. “The fact that the fictional world I created seems real to the court speaks to the power of my literature and the court’s approach to fiction. Suing a fictional universe is abstract. Judging, banning, and seizing it in today’s courts is political. To judge an artist based on characters and their words is an insult to art,” he contended.
The court decided to inquire with the Istanbul Security Branch Directorate about the publication date of Ekinci’s Dreams Divided and referred the case to the prosecution for an opinion on the merits. The trial was adjourned to Dec. 9.
Following the hearing, Ekinci made a statement in front of the courthouse. “This is not just a case against me, but a warning to all authors. No one can tell a writer what to write or how to write. We want literature to be discussed through new styles, not lawsuits,” he said.
What happened?
Following a complaint to CİMER on Feb. 7, 2023, one day after the Feb. 6 earthquakes, an investigation was launched into Yavuz Ekinci’s novel Dreams Divided, published by Doğan Kitap in 2014.
On March 14, 2023, Istanbul’s 7th Criminal Court of Peace issued a decision to seize the books. Following this, the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office also initiated an investigation.
(English version by Ayşenaz Toptaş)