We have our own sky; Ships made of eyes, wings of eyelashes; In meeting glances, we take flight
Nurduran Duman, a Turkish poet, playwright, translator, editor from Istanbul, shares her poems
Nurduran Duman is a Turkish poet, playwright, translator, editor who lives in Istanbul. Pursuing her passion for the sea, she received a degree as an Ocean Engineer and Naval Architect from Istanbul Technical University. She’s a columnist in one of the most prestigious newspaper of Turkey ‘Cumhuriyet’. She is National Coordinator of World Poetry Movement in Turkey. She is a poet included in the European poetry platform Versopolis. Her books include Yenilgi Oyunu, the 2005 Cemal Sureya Poetry Award winner, and Mi Bemol. ‘Semi-Circle’, a chapbook of her poems translated into English, was published in the United States in 2016 and further English translations can be found in Asymptote, Colorado Review, and Kenyon Review, Faultline, Modern Poetry in Translation (MPT) and others. Her books of “Selected Poems” (Versopolis, 2017, Macedonian-English-Turkish) in Macedonia, “Selected Poems” (Versopolis, 2019, Dutch-English-Turkish) in Belgium. Her poetry collection “Steps of Istanbul” 2019 (Chinese-English-Turkish) was published in China in November 2019, and was awarded as “The Poetry Collection of the Year of the Second Boao International Poetry Award”. She received Golden Camel Award of 2020 Silk Road International Poetry Awards. Her poem “The River” was published in Modern Poetry in Translation (MPT) in 2017 in the UK. She featured in the #internationalwomensday2018 (#IWD18) MPT list of ten women poets in translation from all over the World. The poem “act” for Alexandre Hollan’s painting, she wrote upon request of Paul Valéry Museum in France, was published in the book of museum “Peinture et Poésie (Painting and Poetry)”. Her poems also have been translated into Finnish, Chinese, Spanish, Azerbaijan, Turkish, Bulgarian, Romanian, Slovak, French, German, Occitan, Macedonian, Persian and Italian. Duman was elected as a board member of the Writers Syndicate of Turkey and is an active member of Turkish PEN. She presented the literature program ‘Yazın Küresi – Sphere of Literature’ and the children literature program ‘Kitap Hazinesi – Treasure of the Book’ for radio and television. She has also been involved in many theatre activities as an actress, director throughout her career, and as a playwright nowadays. Her play “Before the Fly” was accepted into the repertoire of Turkish State Theaters and is being staged by Bursa State Theatre. She is Member of Turkish PEN. She teaches the course “Sociological Analysis in Turkish Literature” at Bahçeşehir University. She teaches poetry, creative writing and literary sociology in universities and workshops. She moderates literature activities as a curator in various platforms. She curates events in Istanbul in the name of the World Poetry Movement.
We have our sky
In a dream, into another dream
A door opens, closes: a star
Deep cut angles stitched down lightly
By an invisible needle on the folds of sky
We have our own sky
Ships made of eyes, wings of eyelashes
In meeting glances, we take flight
We’re practicing forms of laughter
Life’s other defiance
(Translated by Aron Aji)
***
Lacework
How the deer wakes to the water
If the crane is in the dream
A pinch of salt to your love! How sweet over the gem stone
Blind ironsmith, bald coppersmith, crazed ceramicist…
Let someone come from nothingness and make the heart a river
Hot burr poisonous copper
The clay is cooked and not yeasted
Human: how are you sweetened?
Your soil was rained on
The fragrance will release in time
When the day comes the letters
Curl to their lines
That moment the pencil marks your paper
Moment by moment the lead leaves its point
How does the human walk
Does it see its face: the water?
***
Custom chronicle
God’s mountains rivers laws society
Loadstones numbers wheel
Also money gunpowder paper then printing
Time in units
From brick houses gaze at stars
Springs in gardens
Glass entwined glistening roof
Who sees the wind?
They left gold in the soil
Pearls on the seabed
Some said to the books
How does it feel?
The unending virtue
***
Binding sparking
Stones to soil salt to books
All life carriers!
Come now come forward
Here only one step already three times of three
Inner barriers outer fences, decisions
Evil an accident one’s self is pure as nature
Every night before sleep
Everyone could bury a pinch of darkness
Underneath trees to water’s bottom
Heartfelt hearts bind together
Can’t we spark stones and set alight?
(Translated by Grace Wessels)
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