from Neynur

Nurduran Duman

Verse 1
Bişnev ez-ney çün şikâyet mî koned / Ez-cüdâyîhâ hikâyet mî koned
Şikâyet ettiği zaman neyi dinle, belki şikâyet etmiyor, ayrılıkları anlatıyor.
Listen to the reed flute’s complaint, its mourning might explain the separation.


the earth’s face equals longing

to tell Ney fall onto earth’s face, open your eyelashes and write:
it exists of course. listen. hear the branding between sky and ground
learn the air and fire the land that blackens my shell, you know yourself from me
i considered its secret where does the thing come, where who what it is

the one who comes forty steps to our one step oh
who becomes unknown as we know more grows as it grows
who what where were you i fractured from your light
as we approach the universe keeps expanding

to tell Nur we fell onto earth’s face, it would be right if i desired
the one who completed her breath and continued on her way





Verse 2
K’ez neyistân tâ merâ bobrîde end / V’ez nefîrem merd ü zen nâlîde end
Beni kamışlıktan kestiklerinden beri, erkek kadın herkes feryadımdan inledi.
Since they cut me from the reed bed, men women everyone lamented my cries.


acceptance is the time to disentangle and disperse

my Ney is my acceptance what is circulating in my core
to my awl it’s home what with why
the membrane is shed the shell is cracked
the curtains multiply me as they are drawn in front of me

oh who cuts harvests sews up and seals, who likes to be known oh
the more you appear, the more remnants are cleared from my eyes
my orbit that says myself

my Nur is my acceptance to live a cause
walk run Gökaltı Tunnel doesn’t end
I am traveling flow through its whiteness its blackness
the intelligent one has many unknowns
heart with one answer





Verse 3
Sîne hâhem şerha şerha ez-firâk / Tâ be-gûyem şerh-i derd-i iştiyâk
Aşk derdini açabileceğim, ayrılıktan parçalanmış bir gönül isterim.
I need a heart broken from separation, so that I can open my own heartbreak.


ash held in the mind is an invitation

with Ney i’ll call the receiver where i have uncertain songs
the left keys blazing away between their chest and forehead
if i didn’t see it i’d recognize it for a thousand years, here to those instruments

i was the saz sounding with Nur i stopped being joyful
i was never played again
but i learned the hole in the heart yearning from seven spaces


translated from the Turkish by Andrew Wessels

Read the original in Turkish

Listen to the poems read in the original Turkish by the poet:

My first encounter with Nurduran Duman’s Neynur series occurred when I was visiting Istanbul about eighteen months ago, my final time in the city as a visitor before moving here last summer. I was spending the day with Nurduran and James Meetze, and as we sat next to the Bosporus, Nurduran pulled out her notebook and said, “I’m working on something new.” As I began to page through the handwritten poems, reading what at the time were about twelve of the now-eighteen-poem sequence, I overheard Nurduran and James begin to talk about Mevlânâ Rumi, mysticism, and how to hear the call of the reed flute.

A few months later, Duman sent me the completed manuscript: Neynur. The poems trace Duman’s spiritual move inward, a vital search for her self and her center. Each poem (a numbered beyit or “verse”) begins with a couplet from Rumi’s “Song of the Reed,” presented in transliterated Persian alongside the Turkish translation (and now also with an English translation). From that origin point, Duman steps onward and outward, treading Rumi’s path and her own individual and divergent path at the same time.

The poems initiate an intense spiritual search that climbs to the heights and plumbs the depths of the self and how the self positions itself within the world. The poems turn in on themselves, inverting space, the body, and language as Duman’s insides pull outward, as she seeks the call of her reed flute (Ney), as she searches for her divine light (Nur). Duman’s lines explore the searing, thoughtful, challenging, and profound spiritual roots of Rumi’s verses. As I watch Duman’s search through these poems, I see many things anew. Rumi’s word becomes both more complex and more clear. I see Duman find the something within the void. I see my own possible paths stretch out ahead, a potential way for me to walk forward, to hear the flute, and to see the light.

Nurduran Duman is a Turkish poet, editor, and translator who lives in Istanbul. She was trained as an ocean engineer and naval architect. Her first collection of poetry, Yenilgi Oyunu (The Game of Defeat), was awarded the 2005 Cemal Sureya Poetry Award. Her second collection, Mi Bemol, was published in 2012. Semi Circle, a chapbook of her poems translated into English, was published by Goodmorning Menagerie in 2016. Translations of her poems have also been published in Colorado Review, Faultline, Interim, and Eleven Eleven among other journals. She is a member of Turkish PEN and is the workshop coordinator for DAM. 

Andrew Wessels has lived in Houston, Cambridge, and Las Vegas. Currently, he splits his time between Istanbul and Los Angeles. He has held fellowships from Poets & Writers and the Black Mountain Institute. His poems, translations, and collaborations can be found in VOLT, Witness, Fence, Tammy Journal, Faultline, and Colorado Review, among others. His first book, A Turkish Dictionary, is forthcoming from 1913 Press.