Optimism I write poems they don’t get published but they will I’m waiting for a letter with good news maybe it will arrive the day I die but it will come for sure the world’s not ruled by governments or money but by the people a hundred years from now maybe but it will be for sure Nâzım Hikmet, 1957 English translation by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk |
Because of you Because of you, each day is a melon slice smelling sweetly of earth. Because of you, all fruits reach out to me as if I were the sun. Thanks to you, I live on the honey of hope. You are the reason my heart beats. Because of you, even my loneliest nights smile like an Anatolian kilim on your wall. Should my journey end before I reach my city, I’ve rested in a rose garden thanks to you. Because of you I don’t let death enter, clothed in the softest garments and knocking on my door with songs calling me to the greatest peace. Nâzım Hikmet, 1960 English translation by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk |
Hikmet’s gravestone at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, Russia, is still today a place of pilgrimage and devotion for people from all over the world. Photo: fiyonk14. |
The Last Bus Midnight. The last bus. The conductor cuts me a ticket. Neither bad news nor a big dinner is waiting for me at home. For me, absence waits. I approach it without sadness or fear. The great dark is closing in. Now I can look at the world quietly and at peace. I’m no longer surprised by a friend’s treachery, a knife concealed in a handshake. It's useless — the enemy can’t provoke me now. I passed through the forest of idols with my axe — how easily they all came down. I put my beliefs to the test once more, I’m thankful that most of them turned out pure. I have never been radiant this way, never free like this. Nâzım Hikmet English translation by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk |
Elegy for Satan My dog’s name was Satan. “Was” has nothing to do with his name — nothing happened to his name. And he wasn’t anything like his name. Devils are cruel: the cruel are sly and lie, but they aren’t smart. My dog was smart. I helped to kill my dog a little, too: I didn’t know how to take care of him. If you can’t care for it, don’t even plant a tree. A tree that dries up in your hands becomes a curse. “A person learns to swim in water”, you say. True. But if you drown, you drown alone. Mornings now I wake up and listen — no one scratching at my door. I feel like crying. I’m ashamed I can’t cry. He was like a person. Most animals are like people — and like good people, too. Under the command of friendship, his thick neck was hair-thin. His freedom was in his teeth and legs, his politesse in his long bushy tail. We used to miss each other. He would speak of the gravest matters: of hunger, of being full, of love. But he didn’t know longing for home. That’s on my head. When the poet went to heaven, he said: “Ah, but my country...” He died the way everyone dies whether human, animal, or plant — on a bed or on the ground, in the air or in water, suddenly, waiting, or asleep — the way everyone dies, the way I’m going to die, the way we’re going to die... Today it’s ninety-eight in the shade. I gaze at the forest from the balcony: tall slender pines rise deep red against the steel-blue sky. The people sweating, the dogs’ tongues hanging out, they’re all headed for the lake to swim. Leaving their heavy bodies on the shore, they’ll know the happiness of fish. Nâzım Hikmet English translation by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk |
27 October 1945 We are one half of an apple, the other half is the big world. We are one half of an apple, the other half is our people. You are one half of an apple, the other half is me, us two... Nâzım Hikmet English translation by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk |
The Strangest Creature on Earth You’re like a scorpion, my brother, you live in cowardly darkness like a scorpion. You’re like a sparrow, my brother, always in a sparrow’s flutter. You’re like a clam, my brother, closed like a clam, content, And you’re frightening, my brother, like the mouth of an extinct volcano. Not one, not five — unfortunately, you number millions. You’re like a sheep, my brother: when the cloaked drover raises his stick, you quickly join the flock and run, almost proudly, to the slaughterhouse. I mean you’re strangest creature on earth — even stranger than the fish that couldn’t see the ocean for the water. And the oppression in this world is thanks to you. And if we’re hungry, tired, covered with blood, and still being crushed like grapes for our wine, the fault is yours — I can hardly bring myself to say it, but most of the fault, my dear brother, is yours. Nâzım Hikmet, 1947 English translation by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk |
Hikmet thoughtfully sitting in between the prison bars. Courtesy of Samet Baysal. |
There is no shame in dreading death Or thoughts of dying. The strangest of our powers Is the courage to live Knowing that we will die, Knowing nothing more true. Nâzım Hikmet, In the Snowy Night Woods, 1956 English translation by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk |
A young Hikmet behind the bars of a Turkish prison. He is the one with the mustache. Courtesy of Cumhuriyet. |
24 September 1945 The most beautiful sea hasn’t been crossed yet. The most beautiful child hasn’t grown up yet. Our most beautiful days we haven’t seen yet. And the most beautiful words I wanted to tell you I haven’t said yet... Nâzım Hikmet English translation by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk |
You You are my enslavement and my freedom You are my flesh burning like a raw summer night You are my country You are the green silks in hazel eyes You are big, beautiful and triumphant And you are my sorrow that isn’t felt the more I feel it. Nâzım Hikmet English translation by Larry Clark |
A solemn commemoration of the legendary Turkish poet Nâzım Hikmet on the 120th year anniverary of his birth was held on Tuesday, January 25, 2022 in the elegant halls of the Russian Writers and Publishers Union (ASPI) at Moscow, Russia, jointly organised by
the Yunus Emre Institute, the Nâzım Hikmet Culture and Arts Foundation and the Nâzım Hikmet Library. Photos: Yunus Emre Institute. |
To Vera Please come, she said, And stay, she said, And smile, she said, And die, she said. I came, I stayed, I smiled, I died. Nâzım Hikmet, 1963 English translation by Alex Miller |
Some Advice to Those Who Will Serve Time in Prison If instead of being hanged by the neck you’re thrown inside for not giving up hope in the world, your country, your people, if you do ten or fifteen years apart from the time you have left, you won’t say, “Better I had swung from the end of a rope like a flag” — You’ll put your foot down and live. It may not be a pleasure exactly, but it’s your solemn duty to live one more day to spite the enemy. Part of you may live alone inside, like a tone at the bottom of a well. But the other part must be so caught up in the flurry of the world that you shiver there inside when outside, at forty days’ distance, a leaf moves. To wait for letters inside, to sing sad songs, or to lie awake all night staring at the ceiling is sweet but dangerous. Look at your face from shave to shave, forget your age, watch out for lice and for spring nights, and always remember to eat every last piece of bread — also, don’t forget to laugh heartily. And who knows, the woman you love may stop loving you. Don’t say it’s no big thing: it’s like the snapping of a green branch to the man inside. To think of roses and gardens inside is bad, to think of seas and mountains is good. Read and write without rest, and I also advise weaving and making mirrors. I mean, it’s not that you can’t pass ten or fifteen years inside and more — you can, as long as the jewel on the left side of your chest doesn’t lose its luster! Nâzım Hikmet, May 1949 English translation by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk |
Davet Dörtnala gelip Uzak Asya’dan Akdeniz’e bir kısrak başı gibi uzanan bu memleket, bizim. Bilekler kan içinde, dişler kenetli, ayaklar çıplak ve ipek bir halıya benziyen toprak, bu cehennem, bu cennet bizim. Kapansın el kapıları, bir daha açılmasın, yok edin insanın insana kulluğunu, bu dâvet bizim... Yaşamak bir ağaç gibi tek ve hür ve bir orman gibi kardeşçesine, bu hasret bizim... Invitation Galloping from farthest Asia and jutting out into the Mediterranean like a mare’s head— this country is ours. Wrists in blood, teeth clenched, feet bare on this soil that’s like a silk carpet— this hell, this paradise is ours. Shut the gates of servitude, keep them shut, stop man worship another man— this invitation is ours. To live, free and single like a tree but in brotherhood like a forest— this longing is ours. |
Great Humanity
Great humanity sails on ships as deck passengers rides trains third-class travels highways on foot Great humanity goes to work at the age of eight marries at twenty dies at forty: great humanity. There is enough bread for everyone except great humanity rice too same with sugar and cloth books as well there is enough of them for all except great humanity. There is no shadow on the ground of great humanity no lamps in its streets no pane in its windows But great humanity has its hopes there can be no life without hope. |
A man removes broken glass scattered on the carpet of a mosque damaged in Tuesday’s blast in Beirut, Lebanon August 5, 2020. Photo: Aziz Taher/Reuters.
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Moscow, 1962
You grew tired of carrying my weight you grew tired of my hands of my eyes of my shadow my words were fire my words were deep wells one day suddenly you will feel inside the imprints of my footsteps walking away and that weight will be the heaviest. |
A discarded disposable glove flies in the wind in Barcelona, Spain. Photo: Nacho Doce/Reuters.
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20 September 1945
At this late hour this fall night I am full of your words: words eternal like time and matter, naked like eyes, heavy like hands, and sparkling like stars. Your words came to me, they were from your heart, mind, and flesh. Your words brought you, they were: mother, woman, and comrade. They were sad, painful, happy, they were hopeful, brave — your words were human...
Nâzım Hikmet
English translation by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk |
NASA’s InSight lander used the Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC) on the end of its robotic arm to image this sunset on Mars on April 25, 2019, the 145th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. This was taken around 6,30 P.M. Mars local time. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
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On Living
I Living is no laughing matter: you must live with great seriousness like a squirrel, for example— I mean without looking for something beyond and above living, I mean living must be your whole occupation. Living is no laughing matter: you must take it seriously, so much so and to such a degree that, for example, your hands tied behind your back, your back to the wall, or else in a laboratory in your white coat and safety glasses, you can die for people— even for people whose faces you’ve never seen, even though you know living is the most real, the most beautiful thing. I mean, you must take living so seriously that even at seventy, for example, you’ll plant olive trees— and not for your children, either, but because although you fear death you don’t believe it, because living, I mean, weighs heavier. II Let’s say we’re seriously ill, need surgery— which is to say we might not get up from the white table. Even though it’s impossible not to feel sad about going a little too soon, we’ll still laugh at the jokes being told, we’ll look out the window to see if it’s raining, or still wait anxiously for the latest newcast... Let’s say we’re at the front— for something worth fighting for, say. There, in the first offensive, on that very day, we might fall on our face, dead. We’ll know this with a curious anger, but we’ll still worry ourselves to death about the outcome of the war, which could last years. Let’s say we’re in prison and close to fifty, and we have eighteen more years, say, before the iron doors will open. We’ll still live with the outside, with its people and animals, struggle and wind— I mean with the outside beyond the walls. I mean, however and wherever we are, we must live as if we will never die. III This earth will grow cold, a star among stars and one of the smallest, a gilded mote on blue velvet— I mean this, our great earth. This earth will grow cold one day, not like a block of ice or a dead cloud even but like an empty walnut it will roll along in pitch-black space... You must grieve for this right now —you have to feel this sorrow now— for the world must be loved this much if you’re going to say “I lived”...
Nâzım Hikmet, 1948
English translation by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk |
Store manager Federica Bianchi views a giant handcrafted chocolate replica of the Elizabeth Tower, which houses the Big Ben bell, to mark the opening of the Neuhaus UK flagship boutique in St Pancras International, London, England. The sculpture took over 100 hours to create using 45 kg of Neuhaus Belgian dark chocolate. Photo: Dominic Lipinski/PA via Getty Images.
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Today is Sunday
Today is Sunday. Today, for the first time, they took me out into the sun and for the first time in my life I looked at the sky amazed that it was so far and so blue and so wide. I stood without moving and then respectfully sat on the black earth, pressed my back against the wall. Now, not even a thought of dying, not a thought of freedom, of my wife, The earth, the sun and me... I am happy. |
上海芭蕾舞团 (Shànghǎi Ballet) dancers wearing masks practice in a dance studio in 上海 (Shànghǎi), China. Photo: 阿里宋 (Ālǐ Sòng)/Reuters.
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A Sad State of Freedom
You waste the attention of your eyes, the glittering labour of your hands, and knead the dough enough for dozens of loaves of which you’ll taste not a morsel; you are free to slave for others— you are free to make the rich richer. The moment you’re born they plant around you mills that grind lies lies to last you a lifetime. You keep thinking in your great freedom a finger on your temple free to have a free conscience. Your head bent as if half-cut from the nape, your arms long, hanging, your saunter about in your great freedom: you’re free with the freedom of being unemployed. You love your country as the nearest, most precious thing to you. But one day, for example, they may endorse it over to America, and you, too, with your great freedom— you have the freedom to become an air-base. You may proclaim that one must live not as a tool, a number or a link but as a human being— then at once they handcuff your wrists. You are free to be arrested, imprisoned and even hanged. There’s neither an iron, wooden nor a tulle curtain in your life; there’s no need to choose freedom: you are free. But this kind of freedom is a sad affair under the stars. |
劉勃麟 (Liú Bólín), Hiding in the City – Marine Litter, Surfrider 02, 2017. Courtesy of 劉勃麟 (Liú Bólín)/Galerie Paris–北京 (Běijīng).
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Five Lines
To overcome lies in the heart, in the streets, in the books from the lullabies of the mothers to the news report that the speaker reads, understanding, my love, what a great joy it is, to understand what is gone and what is on the way.
Nâzım Hikmet
English translation by Fatih Akgül |
Achilles and Ajax (?) playing a board game, detail. Etruscan mirror (after Körte 1897, pl. 109). Credit: Ulrich Schädler.
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