He wrote his poems against the gravity of language. Images, therefore, speak in his poetry solely on his behalf.
[…]
He was almost a philatelist with words. (He saw, long before we did, the fact that the boundaries of language are the boundaries of the world.)
[…]
A man of the Golden Age. “Poeta pirata est,” he would say?
From “Oktay Rifat”
—Ilhan Berk, Selected Poems by Ilhan Berk (Talisman House, 2004), edited and translation by Önder Otçu.
2 comments:
"He wrote his poems against the gravity of language. Images, therefore, speak in his poetry solely on his behalf"
I like this
I like this a lot...
It's a beautiful book of poems. Some are very short and piquant. Others sprawling and far-reaching.
Some very nice love poems in the collection too.
Only a few touch on poetics (like these snips I've quoted). Generally they are related to paying tribute to another poet. Like this one...
When he blew his candle out one day, he said: “Poems do not conserve. They oppose all!”
from the “The Bull Thistle, A Beautiful Plant”*
*This poem is tribute to the Turkish poet Turgut Uyar
Ilhan Berk, Selected Poems by Ilhan Berk (Talisman House, 2004), edited and translation by Önder Otçu.
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