Gülten Akin, Two Poems

Translated from the Turkish


Gülten Akın, Ağıtlar ve Türküler 1972-1983 (p.30)

ANNESİ ÇALIŞAN ÇOCUĞUN AĞIDI

Attım. Boyalar ne işe yarayabilir
Yalnızlık için karadan başka
Hangi rengi kullanabilirim
Kuru masa, donuk tavan, somurtuk halı
Solgun durmalı resimlerim

Pencerem kuşları çekmiyor
Soluğu azaldı nergislerin
Üç tarak olsa taranmaz Yuku-Lili’nin saçları
Ben annesi çalışan bir çocuğum

Yollarda damlarda eski yazdan kalma
Mavi çizgileri kar gelir kapatır
Sustum. Sevincin sesleri de
Bir iki deneyip susacak
Duvar diplerinde kedisel çığlıklar
Bahçelerde çirkin kasımpatları açmalıdır


Lament of a Working Mother's Child

I threw them out. What good are paints
For loneliness, apart from black
What colour can I use
Dry table, dull ceiling, sulky carpet
My pictures should look pale

My window no longer attracts birds
Daffodils are losing their breath
Even with three brushes, you still can’t comb Yuku-Lili’s hair
I am the child of a mother who goes out to work

Snow on the road and the roof veils
The blue lines left over from last summer
I say nothing. Trying once or twice
The sound of joy will also say nothing
Cat-like wails at the foot of the wall
In the gardens, ugly chrysanthemums should be blooming

• • •

Gülten Akın, Kuş Uçsa Gölge Kalır

LEKE

Çağın en karmaşık yerinde durduk
biri bizi yazsın, kendimiz değilse
kim yazacak
sustukça köreldi
kaba günü yonttuğumuz ince bıçak
nerde onlar, her kımıldayışta
çakan tansık, ışıldatan büyü
bir gün daha görülmedi
bir gün daha geçti otları soldurarak

öğrendik de körmüş, sanki yokmuş
ne yol ne bir geçip giden
ne kaydını tutan geçip gidenin
dediler ki
onları kilitle, anahtarı eski yerine bırak
oysa
utanılacak bir şeymiş, öyle diyor Camus
tak başına mutlu olmak
sesler ve öteki sesler, nerde dünyanın sesleri
leke dokuya işledi
susarak susarak


Stain

Here we stand at the messiest point of our time

someone should write us, if we don’t
who will

the more silence kept, the duller became
the fine knife we used
to carve out raw day

where are they, the flashing miracle
and the shining magic in every motion

one more day unseen
one more day passed withering the grass

so we learn it was blind, as if there were
no alley no passerby
no one to record the passerby

they said
lock them up, leave the key in its old place

but the truth is
it’s a shameful thing, as Camus says
to be happy on your own

voices and other voices, where are the world’s voices

the stain invaded the tissue
saying nothing saying nothing

• • •

Gülten Akın (b. 1933) is Turkey’s most distinguished woman poet. She moved to Ankara with her family in 1943 and attended Cebeci Elementary school and Ankara High School for girls. She studied law at Ankara University and worked as a lawyer in several regions of Anatolia. She is at the forefront of poets for whom poetry is synonymous with social responsibility. Her poetry is characterized by a calm yet powerful voice. She attempted to distance herself from the influential “Second New Movement” in the period of their hegemony in Turkish poetry (approx 1960’s and 70’s) and has focused on utilizing folk poetry in her later poetry.. Her major poetry collections include Rüzgâr Saati (Hour of the Wind / 1956), Kestim Kara Saçlarımı (I Cut My Dark Hair / 1960), Sığda (In the Shallows / 1964), Kırmızı Karanfil (Red Carnation / 1971), Maraş’ın ve Ökkeş’in Destanı (Epic of Maraş and Ökkeş / 1972), Ağıtlar ve Türküler (Elegies and Folk Songs / 1976), İlahiler (Hymns / 1983), Sevda Kalıcıdır (Love Endures / 1991), Sonra İşte Yaşlandım (It Was Then That I Aged / 1995), Sessiz Arka Bahçeler (Silent Back Yards / 1998) and Uzak Bir Kıyıda (On a Distant Shore / 2004). Akın was awarded the 1961 and 1971 Turkish Language Association Poetry Awards and the 1992 Sedat Simavi Literature Award.

Cemal Demircioğlu is Assistant Professor of Translation Studies at Okan University, Istanbul, Turkey. He completed his BA and MA in Modern Turkish Literagure at Boğazici University and obtained his PhD in Translation Studies from the same university in 2005.

Arzu Eker teaches English and translation at Boğazici University. She is currently working on her PhD thesis on Orhan Pamuk’s translations into English at the same university.

Mel Kenne is a poet and translator who teaches in the American Culture and Literature Department of Kadir Has University in Istanbul, Turkey. He has published three volumes of poetry and translated the work of a number of Turkish writers, most recently the novel Swords of Ice, by Latife Tekin.

Sidney Wade is a poet and translator. Her new collections of poems forthcoming from Persea Books in January 2008 is called Stroke. She teaches at the University of Florida.

These two poems by Gülten Akin were translated at the Cunda Workshop for Translators of Turkish Literature in June 2007.

Tran Tien Dung, "Monologuist with Light Pole on Bolsa Avenue"

Translated from the Vietnamese by Linh Dinh


Người độc thoại với cột đèn ở đường Bolsa

Ông đứng trên đường Bolsa với những cột đèn vàng
từng cột đèn là bạn của một người lưu vong,
ông đến đây chỉ màu vàng là bạn
màu vàng cao và rộng.
Mỗi ngày ông ngước lên và nói
“Tôi về sớm nấu một nồi cơm,
hôm nay có lẽ chúng ta ra khỏi bóng đêm của rượu.”

“Một phần xứ này quả thật thuộc về màu vàng
của nước đái bò và của những bụi cỏ cháy khét,
có quá nhiều những miếng thịt bò đã chết trong miệng,
có miếng da bò Mỹ đã làm ra thứ ánh vàng đắng nghét."

Mỗi ngày ông ngước lên và nói

“Mà vì sao tôi
không thuộc về đâu cả
màu mỡ bò ở quán phở Hạnh
màu âm nhạc ở cà phê Ly Ly
không gì khác vẫn màu Mỹ vừa ngon vừa dễ chán.
Mỗi sáng tôi bước khỏi giấc mơ
co rúm và khô,
cái điện thoại không thể gọi người đàn bà ấy
chỉ có thể gọi màu vàng.
Mỗi tối tôi bước vào mùi rượu
tiếng tôi say trong đêm không thể gọi cô gái làng chơi,
tôi chỉ có thể nói chuyện với màu vàng và
sau câu chuyện rất dài
màu vàng trên đường Bolsa lại trải ra cái chăn rất dầy.”

“Tôi từng tưởng tượng một màu vàng lạ,
nói cách khác tôi từng tin màu vàng là đôi cánh
đôi cánh bắt đầu từ nỗi đau ở phía đông
đôi cánh là nắng xoa dịu bao nhiêu chuyện buồn
mà vì sao tôi vẫn ngước lên.
Nỗi đau và chuyện buồn không xóa tan được nỗi sợ.
Tôi sợ mùi cộng sản, tôi sợ mùi bơ Mỹ.”

“Tôi đứng đây cạnh cột đèn đường Bolsa
dang rộng tay như một con đại bàng,
không một loài đại bàng nào ở Mỹ có màu lông gà.
Tôi vẫn ngước lên.
Tôi vẫn yêu những con gà mà tôi lỡ bóp chết và vẫn
khóc thương số phận gà con.
Tôi vẫn yêu cái màu vàng máu đã khô và linh hồn ngơ ngác ấy.”

“Tôi vẫn ngước lên đây.
Không một loài đại bàng Mỹ nào có lông của loài gà.
Tôi sợ màu Mỹ, tôi sợ màu cộng sản.”

“Tôi đứng đây trên đường Bolsa từ ngày cho tới đêm,
không một chút ảo tưởng
ở ngoài chính thể Mỹ
ở ngoài sự săn đuổi của cộng sản.
Nỗi sợ của tôi nhìn thấu hết mọi thứ trừ màu biển.”

“Tôi đến đây từ biển.
Biển là miệng một loài quái vật là đôi cánh tự do.
Tôi đứng đây với những cột đèn Bolsa
sợ nơi chốn dung chứa sợ nơi chốn trốn đi.
Tôi đứng trong bình minh biển
đối diện với nỗi sợ không bao giờ bị phân huỷ.”



Monologuist with Light Pole on Bolsa Avenue

He stands on Bolsa Avenue with the yellow light poles
each light pole a friend of the exile,
he came here with only yellow as a friend
a tall and wide yellow.
Each day he looks up and says
“I’ll go home early to cook up a pot of rice.
perhaps today we’ll escape from the liquor’s shadow.”

“A part of this land truly belongs to the yellow
of cow piss and scorched clumps of grass,
there are too many pieces of beef dying inside the mouth,
a piece of American cowhide creating a bitter yellow glow.”

Each day he looks up and says

“But how come I
don’t belong anywhere
the color of beef fat in the pho restaurant Hạnh
the color of music in the Ly Ly café
nothing but the American color both delicious and tedious.
Each morning I step out of a dream
Shrivelled and dry,
the telephone cannot call that woman
only a call to yellow.
Each night I step into the liquor’s fume
my drunken voice at night cannot call the hooker,
I can only talk with yellow and
after a very long story
yellow spreads again a thick blanket on Bolsa Avenue.”

“I used to imagine a strange yellow,
in other word I used to believe yellow was a pair of wings
a pair of wings originating from a torment in the East
a pair of wings as sunlight soothing so much sadness
but why do I still look up.
Torment and sadness cannot rub out fear.
I fear the smell of Communism, I fear the smell of American butter.”

“I stand here next to a light pole on Bolsa Avenue
spread my arms wide like an eagle,
there’s no America eagle with the color of chicken feathers.
I still look up.
I still love the chickens I’ve accidently squeezed to death and still
mourn the fate of chicks.
I still love yellow blood already dry and that bewildered soul.”

“I still look up there.
There’s no America eagle with the color of chicken feathers.
I fear the American color, I fear the color of Communism.”

“I stand here on Bolsa Avenue from day until night,
with no illusion
beyond the American system
beyond the Communist hunt.
My fear sees through everything but the color of the sea.”

“I came here from the sea.
The sea is a monster is a pair of free wings.
I stand here with the Bolsa light poles
fearing the place of refuge the place escaped from.
I stand inside the sea dawn
facing an everlasting fear.”

• • •

Tran Tien Dung was born in Go Cong in 1958 and now lives in Ho Chi Minh City. He is the author of four books of poetry, “Moving Mass” (1997), “Appear” (2000), “Chicken Feather Duck Feather Sky” (2003) and “Two Flowers On The Forehead Of A Second Class Citizen” (2006). His poems have been translated into English by Linh Dinh, and published in Manoa and in Contemporary Voices from the Eastern World: An Anthology of Poems (Norton 2007). “Monologuist with Light Pole on Bolsa Avenue” was written after a visit to Orange County in May of 2007, during his first trip to the US.

Linh Dinh was born in Vietnam in 1963, came to the US in 1975, and has also lived in Italy and England. He is the author of two collections of stories, Fake House (Seven Stories Press 2000) and Blood and Soap (Seven Stories Press 2004), and four books of poems, All Around What Empties Out (Tinfish 2003), American Tatts (Chax 2005), Borderless Bodies (Factory School 2006) and Jam Alerts (Chax 2007). His work has been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007 and Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, among other places. Linh Dinh is also the editor of the anthologies Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (Seven Stories Press 1996) and Three Vietnamese Poets (Tinfish 2001), and translator of Night, Fish and Charlie Parker, the poetry of Phan Nhien Hao (Tupelo 2006). Blood and Soap was chosen by the Village Voice as one of the best books of 2004. His poems and stories have been translated into Italian, Spanish, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Japanese and Arabic, and he has been invited to read his works all over the US, London, Cambridge and Berlin. He has also published widely in Vietnamese.

Triunfo Arciniegas, "Distance"

Translated from the Spanish by Steve Dolph

Lejanía

En un cuarto apestoso
El viejo esparce la baraja
Y a través del humo
Me señala tu imagen
Junto a un hombre
Que no soy yo


Distance

In a molding room
The old man
Lays out the deck
And through the smoke
Points to your figure
Next to a man
Who is not me

• • •


Triunfo Arciniegas is a fantastically prolific Colombian author. If he were American he'd be labeled a "fabulist" or something else in that vein. Not a Magic Realist, but certainly not not one, Arciniegas sees the world always slightly refracted through his irony glasses. Below is translated a poem Arciniegas posted to Letralia, a website that serves as a good introduction to his work, including poetry, prose, and essays.

Steve Dolph edits this journal. He is currently translating a short story collection by Arciniegas, The Unicorn Garden and Other Places for Lonely Men.

Zoltán Böszörményi "Welcome Visitors"

Translated from the Hungarian by Paul Sohar

Zoltán Böszörményi is Hungarian, born in Romania. Back in the early 80’s he had an adventurous escape from communist Romania and has been all over the world, now often back in Transylvania, his homeland, where he has a small publishing empire. More info available on his website: boszormenyizoltan.info