On His Poetry

Piraye İçin Yazılmış Saat 21-22 Şiirleri (9-10 p. m. Poems Written For Piraye): Consisted of 31 poems written between September 20,1945 and December 14,1945. The poet who was working on Memleketimden İnsan Manzaraları (Human Landscapes from My Homeland) on daytimes stopped each andevery work, thought only his wife and wrote a poem for her when the time is 9 p.m. ever evening.

Most of these lyric poems in which the poet’s struggle and love combined within each other are respected as our modern poems’ masterpieces today. Lyric sensitivity, easy expression flowing like water, combination of love and a humanist point of view provided him to versify as masterly as masking poet’s mastership.

Rubaiyat/Quatrains / Rubailer : In model of ‘Rubai’ (Quatrain) he tended to after 21-22 poems, the poet wanted to work about the dialectic idea, social problems and loves of age in traditional quatrain structure. He was very successful also in that experiment he began at the end of 1945 and continued in 1946 and wrote 23 quatrains.

We see his traditional settlement in Rubais (Quatrains) too. Although he used rhyme model of traditional Rubai (Quatrain), he didn’t use syllabic of prosody. He used some words special to Tasavvuf ‘Islamic mysticism-Sufism’ (heyula-ghostly, suret- shape, hayal-image, ayna-mirror, alem-universe/world/sphere, golge-shadow, akis- reflection/ echo, etc), but he worked about dialectic idea by not being overwhelmed by mysterious contents of poem, and he brought forward materialist idea instead of idealism in traditional poem.

Yatar Bursa Kalesinde (Imprisoned In The Fortress Of Bursa) : This book isn’t a book the poet planned. It was published in 1988 while the poet’s all of products were published. It included poems written between 1929 and 1951 and weren’t published in poet’s other books. Most of these poems’ being written between 1948 and 1951, transformed the book to a work of art including the important poems of Nâzım Hikmet’s maturity period.

Really, the poems like Yatar Bursa Kalesinde (Imprisoned in the Fortress of Bursa), Dünyanın En Tuhaf Mahlûku (The Strangest Creature on Earth), Ben İçeri Düştuğümden Beri (While I was on prison), Yasamaya Dair (On Living), Angina Pektoris, Tahiri ile Zühre Meselesi (The Issue About Tahir and Zuhre), Hapiste Yatacak Olana Bazi Ogutler (Some Advice to Those Who Will Serve Time in Prison), Ellerinize ve Yalana Dair (Of Your Hands and Lies), Aclik Grevinin Besinci Gununde (The Fifth Day on the Hunger Strike) are respected as the poet’s unforgettable poems.

FIRST YEARS ON ABROAD

When he was set free in 15 July 1950, he was obliged to escape out of country in 17 June 1951 with the understanding of no way left to survive in his home country.

Although he journeyed outside trips for months and toured almost all over the world, Moscow became the place where he always lived until he expired.

His poems after that date developed like his life’s dairy. He wrote poems about his works, actions he attended. Besides, the dose of political polemic in his poems increased strongly.

The most attractive feature in the poems of this term is majority of poems about the action of world peace. Nâzım was chosen as a member to World Peace Council and was together with leading intellectuals of world, in various appointments of Council. Having the idea of those years world got a serious threat of nuclear war, writing peace poems had been a part of his mission and beliefs.

Another important theme in his poems having high lyric theme is yearning for homeland. His country that he left beyond, his city (İstanbul), his people, his wife and his son always took their place within his poetry. The poems like “Vasiyet” (Testament), “Ceviz Agacı” (The Walnut Tree), “Mavi Liman” (Blue Harbour), “Yine Memleketim Üstüne Soylenmistir” (Again Told About My Own Country), Varna Siirleri (The Poems of Varna) are successful examples of this kind of poems.

“Karlı Kayın Ormanı” (On The Snowy Beech Forest) can be taken into account as this kind of poems; it has a special position by adding personal themes like aging to the theme of yearning.

“Masalların Masali” (Tale of Tales) and “Sebastian Bach’ın 1 Numaralı Dominör Konçertosu” (Bach’s Concerto no. 1 in C Minor) were some of his poems having reform in form and sensitivity.

LAST TERM POEMS

A new variation appeared in Nâzım Hikmet’s poetry between 1961 and 1963. Basic characteristics in expressions of this term symbolized with “Saman Sarısı” (Straw-Coloured), “Severmisim Meger” (However I’d be loved), “Havana Roportajı” (The Feature Story of Havana), “Tanganika Roportajı” (The Feature Story of Tanganyika) had been long poems, long lines, having very big exuberance and continuing of the expression of exuberance seeming not to stop.

“Saman Sarısı” (Straw-Coloured) is the most successful example for this term’s poems. It is a unique work of art describing dream and real, present and past together within and next to each other, improving with free association and its modern mood oncoming to the conscious trend, its mood like a fable, lyric sayings, and rich images.

The poet’s attention to his own country doesn’t decrease in this term. He wrote “Beyazıt Meydanındaki Ölü” (The Death on Beyazıt Square) for Turan Emeksiz who was shot in Beyazıt Meydanı before 27 May 1960, “Türkiye İsçi Sınıfına Selam” (The Greetings to Turkey Worker Class) for the greatest workers meeting held in 1962 in Sarachane Square, and “Vatan Haini” (The Traitor) when an Ankara newspaper teased him as traitor.

Another theme of his last term poems is aging and death. His poems had exuberance and sadness together at the same time. He said both “Giderayak İsleri Vardir Bitirilecek” (Just Before Leaves He Has to Finish to Work) “Sevdalara Doyulama”mıştır (not to have enough of loves), and wished long lives to his neighbors.

Translated From The Turkish By Tuğrul Asi Balkar