Two Swan Songs

Both Sylvia Plath and Nilgun Marmara made their statements in life and in their poetry. Plath wrote for about seven years (1956-1963) and gassed herself on February 11, aged 30. Marmara wrote for ten years (1977-87) and decided to end her life on October 13, 1987, aged 29. Plath’s and Marmara’s lives and...

Mapping the ‘İkinci Yeni’

The maps of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth demonstrate a remarkable fealty to the fictional world they depict. And yet they are fictions. They are also astonishing visual manifestations of Tolkien’s fetish for facts. My understanding of the İkinci Yeni (meaning literally, the Second New) perpetuates its...

I Forgot the Words, But I Knew the Substance

HURUFI POEMS (Hurufî Şiirler) by Hilmi Yavuz YKY, 58 pp., 2005, ISBN: 978-975-08-0890-6 From the article… No east can deny its west; no modernity can be built without tradition. Hilmi Yavuz calls it ‘accuracy’ and defines the accuracy as the shared identity between the poet and his/her...

The Lale Müldür: Unleashed Poetry of a Released Woman

BIZANSIYYA by Lale Müldür YKY, 163 pp., 2007, ISBN: 978-975-08-1188-3 HOURS/DEERS (Saatler/Geyikler) by Lale Müldür YKY, 153 pp., 2002, ISBN: 978-975-08-0286-7 ULTRA ZONE (Ultra-Zone’da Ultrason) by Lale Müldür YKY, 244 pp., 2006, ISBN: 978-975-08-1078-7 From the article… Is the signifier of...