Beyond the Walls

by McKane, Richard; Christie, Ruth; Hikmet, Nazim

• ISBN13: 9780856463297
• ISBN10: 0856463299
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-06-01
• Publisher: Anvil Press Poetry

Summary

Generous selection from Turkey's greatest modern poet, in superb English translations.

Author Biography

Nazim Hikmet (1902-63), Turkey's greatest modern poet, was a political prisoner in Turkey for eighteen years and spent the last thirteen years of his life in exile, mainly in Russia, travelling widely through Europe and further afield

Table of Contents

Introduction	9	(12)
Translators' Preface	21	(6)
835 Lines
from 835 Lines
Weeping Willow	27	(2)
The Worm in My Body	29	(2)
To Become a Machine	31	(1)
Extracts from the Diary of La Gioconda	32	(6)
from Varan 3
Barefoot	38	(2)
from The City That Lost its Voice
The Provocateur	40	(2)
Maybe I	42	(1)
Four Men and Four Bottles	43	(1)
Advice to Our Children	44	(1)
Why Did Benerjee Kill Himself?
from Telegram in the Night
The Blue-Eyed Giant, the Miniature Woman and the Honeysuckle	45	(1)
Before He Left	46	(1)
Three Cypresses	47	(1)
from Portraits
My Poetry	48	(1)
from Letters to Taranta-Babu
To Be Blind	49	(1)
Eighth Letter to Taranta-Babu	50	(1)
The Epic of Sheikh Bedreddin
The Dream	51	(2)
1-14	53	(20)
Sefik the Turner's Shirt	73	(1)
Ahmed's Story	74	(3)
The Epic of the War of Independence
from Chapter 4
A Letter and a Poem from Nurettin Esfak	77	(2)
The Turkish Peasant	79	(1)
from Chapter 8
`In the moonlight the ox-carts were rolling'	80	(2)
from Chapter 8
`Galloping full tilt from furthest Asia'	82	(1)
Poems Written Between 9 and 10 at Night (for his wife Piraye)	83	(166)
From Four Prisons
Istanbul
`In Istanbul, in Tevkifane prison yard'	97	(1)
`My darling'	98	(1)
`I feel so happy I came into this world'	99	(1)
`I love my country'	100	(2)
Concerning Death	102	(3)
A Birth and a Factory Chimney	105	(2)
The Doomsday Verses
The Verse of the Signs	107	(1)
The Verse of Evaporation	108	(1)
Ankara
Letters from a Man in Solitary	109	(4)
Cankiri
Letters from Cankiri Prison (1-3)	113	(4)
A Cracked Washbasin	117	(6)
The Story of the Walnut Tree and Lame Yunus	123	(7)
Bursa
Lodos	130	(3)
A Strange Feeling	133	(2)
Letter to Kemal Tahir	135	(3)
A Poor Northern Church: Satan and the Priest	138	(8)
Quatrains
Part 1: 13 quatrains	146	(3)
Part 2: 6 quatrains	149	(2)
Part 3: 4 quatrains	151	(1)
In Bursa's Fortress Prison
Poems 1929-1935
`Before the dawn embraces the mountains'	152	(1)
Poems 1937-1951
`I want to die before you'	153	(2)
`Suppose Istanbul my hometown sent me a cypress chest by sea'	155	(1)
A Spring Scene	156	(2)
`I Shut My Eyes Tight'	158	(1)
In Bursa's Fortress Prison	159	(1)
The Weirdest Creature in the World	160	(1)
Illustration on the Cover of a Poetry Book	161	(1)
Uludag	162	(2)
Don Quixote	164	(1)
On Living	165	(3)
Angina Pectoris	168	(1)
Occupation	169	(1)
Autumn	170	(1)
Advice for Someone Going into Prison	171	(2)
Your Hands and the Lies	173	(2)
Five Days into the Hunger Strike	175	(2)
Sad Freedom	177	(2)
New Poems
Testament	179	(2)
Evening	181	(1)
The Postman	182	(2)
My Son is Growing up in Photographs	184	(1)
'To chop down the plane tree'	185	(1)
New Year's Day	186	(1)
Munevver's Letter from Istanbul	187	(5)
The Japanese Fisherman	192	(2)
`Light of my eye, my darling!'	194	(1)
I Got a Letter from Munevver, She Says:	195	(1)
I Wrote a Letter to Munevver, I Said:	196	(2)
The Walnut Tree	198	(1)
The Last Bus	198	(2)
Optimism	200	(1)
A Journey	201	(1)
Strontium 90	202	(1)
Fable of Fables	203	(2)
Chatting with Nezval who Died	205	(2)
Bees	207	(1)
Old Man on the Shore	208	(1)
Great Humanity	209	(1)
The Optimist	210	(1)
The Icebreaker	211	(1)
Last Poems
Two Loves	212	(2)
The Three Storks Restaurant	214	(1)
Morning Darkness	215	(2)
`My woman came with me as far as Brest'	217	(1)
In Beyazit Square	218	(1)
Flaxen Hair	219	(12)
`My time is coming'	231	(1)
Autobiography	232	(2)
`From stone, bronze, plaster, paper'	234	(1)
Where Have We Come From, Where Are We Going?	235	(2)
My Funeral	237	(4)
APPENDIX Early Poems (1913-1925)
`The Ways of God'	241	(1)
Dream	242	(1)
Old Man by the Brink of a Stream	243	(1)
Water Wheel in the Kitchen Garden	244	(1)
First Look at Anatolia	245	(1)
The Dark Fanatical Forces	246	(1)
Wanderlust	247	(2)
Notes	249	(4)
Index of Titles	253