Bir Zamandan Bir Ovaya
Gök burada bodur ve yayvan
Böylece yer yer genç kavaklarla
Bir ahi bulutları dürüyor
Zaman bütün kıvrımlarıyla iç içe yatıyor
Güneş gözlerimden giriyor içeri
Ve sökülüyor kara kıştan gördüklerim
Sana tutunduğum yerlerden çözülüyorum
Bir ağaçtan düşer gibi olgunlaşıyorum
Ellerin ıslak ve berrak
Bir zamandan, bir ovaya topluyorsun beni
Bittiğim yerde büyüyebilen bir türüm
Bütün sulara, aydınlık denizlere bürünürüm
Hiç De Balik Yoktu
Bu koca şehrin hayaletini kim taşır
Kiriyle beraber yüklenir denizi taşır
Boya iskelesi yıkılır, ölümlüdür kuryeler
Tozlar boyar güneşi, kırık apartmanlar taşır
Temiz denizlerle tanıştık ilk, sonra göçtük buraya
Onlar bilmezdi, geçmiş geçer günler taşır
Ömrün uzun sıcağı kuruyan her akıntının içinde
Alkol uzun bir bardağı yakar, öyle taşır
Ruhlar yalnız yaşamaya değil, insanlıktan
kalan bir külfet gibi döner; uzun bir sesi taşır
Metrodan demir ejderler uğuldar
Altında çocuk sesleri ve sessizler taşır
Takvimlere yorgunluğu yazar yazlar, baharla bile
Bulamazlar birbirlerini, körler gibi siyah gözlükler taşır
Kalın bir çiçekle düşer boynun, incelir lambanın ışığında
Güneşe karşı, kel bir gün kalır
Bir bıkkınlık var üzerinde sanki
Arabalar, balıklar geçtikçe yollar baki kalır
Fotoğrafını çektikçe büyür acılar,
telefonlardan; uzat elini boyayı taşır
De Se Et Nunc
Ormanın içinden çıkıp buluyorlar bizi.
Sesleri, kimse duymasın diye alçak
Ve bir o kadar hüzünlü
“Bacaklarım, senyor...” *
Kuşların ötüşü yüksekti, birden
kesildi; ya dağıldılar ya kavuştular.
Yağöurun sesi ormanda alçak
Ve birdenbire patlıyormuş gibi yüksek, mermerdeyse.
Akan suyun arasından
kırılmış bir heykelin bakışı
ve onun etrafını saran yelesi ağaçların;
İnsan sesi bir başına konuşuyormuş gibi kibirli
Kimse duymuyormuş gibi yüksek
Kuşlar geliyor gerisin geri
Ya dağıldılar
ya kavuştular.
(*) “My legs señor…” William S. Burroughs, “The ‘Priest’ They Called Him”, Exterminator!
Kuşçu
Hayvan kokusu, bir fotoğrafta kalmış ve odunla
düzeltilmiş bir yolun kokusu, soğuk bir şey, rüzgâr.
Boğaza dokunan bir kıyı, suyun alçakgönüllü aktığı yer;
tekrar etmek yasak ondan bu yaşayan ölüler.
Yanında bir gofret çöpü, kırmızı.
Balon gibi bir kuşu bırakalım mı? Kırmızı.
Kekeleyerek
karşısındadır. Konuşmak ister(ler).
İlk cümle adımını boşluğa atar.
Kimse duyamaz. Çok derinlerden bir sessizlik.
Çoğunluk. Akıntının biri çeviriyor onu, sonra öbürü.
Yürüyen bir tedirginlik bütün odayı geziyor.
Hâlâ bir cevap gelmedi. Hecelerle
U-mut-mut-suz-luk. Bir azınlık.
Ancak görülecek boyutta.
Sonra karanlık konuşur sessizlik adına “Bugün
sessizdi,” der. Böyledir karanlık, tutar yanındakini.
Sonuçta ya unutulacak ya da unutulacak.
Denebilir ki biraz merhamet. Çıt yok.
kitaptan Olmasını İstediğimiz Bir Park
Enver Ali Akova
Listen to a recording of "From a Time Back to a Plain" read in the original Turkish by the author:
When I first encountered Enver Ali Akova’s poetry, his lines felt like droplets lingering on a bough, waiting to meet the water below. Deliberate and silent, they created sonic and lyric ripples which patiently expanded far beyond their physical bounds.
But how does one translate that?
I made my first attempt with “Bir Zamandan Bir Ovaya” (“From A Time Back To A Plain”), the opening poem of Akova’s award-winning collection Olmasını İstediğimiz Bir Park (A Park Wished For). In my translation log, I noted: “I love the images in this poem. Meaning, I’m not sure yet. I’ll think about that later.” That says a lot about my process. Rather than approaching the poem from every angle at once, I let one element lead the way, leaving others for later drafts. Here, it was the imagery: artisans folding clouds, dark winters coming undone, water draping like cloth. As I tinkered with these images, I kept coming back to the same question: Does it sound right? Can I hear the harshness of a dark winter in these words? Maybe so—if “harsh winter,” with its sharp, relentless sh sounds, ends up being my final choice.
Sound then became my guide as I wrestled with repeating consonants, rhymes, as well as duplications—natural and impactful in Turkish but less so in English. Searching through different soundscapes, I found Akova’s images particularly attuned to repetitions of sound in English. Hence the abundance of sibilance and alliteration in all the twists and turns of the translation.
This isn’t to say meaning is an afterthought, or that poetry translation should follow a specific order. Translating poetry is always a balancing act, its process unique to each piece. For this particular collection, every choice became a conversation between form and content, space and movement, voice and voicelessness, Turkish and English.
This was a conversation that really came alive while translating “Hiç De Balik Yoktu” (“No Fish At All”), one of the two ghazals in Akova’s collection. Once the most popular poetic form in the Ottoman Empire, the ghazal has seen wide global recognition in recent decades, even becoming more prominent in English-language poetry. Translating Akova’s ghazal gave me a chance to reflect on the form’s legacy and potential in modern Turkish, and as I tasted different rhymes, I couldn’t help but draw on the rich sonic resonances the ghazal has cultivated between languages.
Like the rest of A Park Wished For, the five poems here explore a restless movement between interior and exterior spaces, internal voice and interpersonal address, the familiar and the unknown. The poems contemplate—and at times lament—how we connect with nature, which is often mediated through urban green spaces. I hope this selection gives readers a chance to experience the power of Akova’s work, where sensuous imagery becomes inseparable from the poetic statement, and gestures of thinking continuously reshape poetic imagery, opening up new possibilities for a plain poetic style.
But how does one translate that?
I made my first attempt with “Bir Zamandan Bir Ovaya” (“From A Time Back To A Plain”), the opening poem of Akova’s award-winning collection Olmasını İstediğimiz Bir Park (A Park Wished For). In my translation log, I noted: “I love the images in this poem. Meaning, I’m not sure yet. I’ll think about that later.” That says a lot about my process. Rather than approaching the poem from every angle at once, I let one element lead the way, leaving others for later drafts. Here, it was the imagery: artisans folding clouds, dark winters coming undone, water draping like cloth. As I tinkered with these images, I kept coming back to the same question: Does it sound right? Can I hear the harshness of a dark winter in these words? Maybe so—if “harsh winter,” with its sharp, relentless sh sounds, ends up being my final choice.
Sound then became my guide as I wrestled with repeating consonants, rhymes, as well as duplications—natural and impactful in Turkish but less so in English. Searching through different soundscapes, I found Akova’s images particularly attuned to repetitions of sound in English. Hence the abundance of sibilance and alliteration in all the twists and turns of the translation.
This isn’t to say meaning is an afterthought, or that poetry translation should follow a specific order. Translating poetry is always a balancing act, its process unique to each piece. For this particular collection, every choice became a conversation between form and content, space and movement, voice and voicelessness, Turkish and English.
This was a conversation that really came alive while translating “Hiç De Balik Yoktu” (“No Fish At All”), one of the two ghazals in Akova’s collection. Once the most popular poetic form in the Ottoman Empire, the ghazal has seen wide global recognition in recent decades, even becoming more prominent in English-language poetry. Translating Akova’s ghazal gave me a chance to reflect on the form’s legacy and potential in modern Turkish, and as I tasted different rhymes, I couldn’t help but draw on the rich sonic resonances the ghazal has cultivated between languages.
Like the rest of A Park Wished For, the five poems here explore a restless movement between interior and exterior spaces, internal voice and interpersonal address, the familiar and the unknown. The poems contemplate—and at times lament—how we connect with nature, which is often mediated through urban green spaces. I hope this selection gives readers a chance to experience the power of Akova’s work, where sensuous imagery becomes inseparable from the poetic statement, and gestures of thinking continuously reshape poetic imagery, opening up new possibilities for a plain poetic style.
Enver Ali Akova was born in 1996 in Istanbul. Enver Ali Akova was born in 1996 in Istanbul. His first poetry manuscript, Olmasını İstediğimiz Bir Park (A Park Wished For; Varlık Yayınları, 2018, Turkey), was awarded the Yaşar Nabi Nayır Prize in 2018 and subsequently published by Varlık. Akova is currently pursuing a PhD at Stanford University, focusing on Ancient Greek, Turkish, and Greek literatures.
Zeynep Özer is a translator and occasional poet and writer from Ankara, Turkey, with a particular interest in hybrid forms, lyric essays, and translation as a form of creative writing. After earning her MA in English and teaching at the University of Connecticut, she now lives in Chicago.
