Cahit Sitki Taranci (1910-1956)

He came to Istanbul after completing his primary school education in Diyarbakır. He attended St. Joseph, graduated from Galatasaray High School (1931), then went to Paris and studied Political Science. However, when the Germans captured Paris, he came back to Turkey, completed his military service and worked as a clerk. At the same time, he wrote poems and worked as a translator. He died in Vienna where he was undergoing medical treatment. He treated the theme of death in almost all his poems and used the syllabic meter as an aesthetic tool in his poetry. POETRY: Ömrümde Sükût (1933), Otuz Beş Yaş (1946, for which he won the poetry award of The Republican Party poetry contest), Düşten Güzel (1952), SonrasıZiya'ya Mektuplar (1957, letters to Ziya Osman Saba). (1957). OTHER WORKS:

I HAD A MAP

I had a map, a souvenir from school

With continents and seas and coloured countries.      

A splendid world, I hardly know it now,

With happy men and peaceful smoking chimneys

And continents and seas and coloured countries.

 

And now I weep, our map is all in blood

The blood Cain shed, that never could be staunched,

Bringing a somber sameness to our world

And torment to us all.

And now I weep, our map is all in blood.

 

Translated by Bernard Lewis 

I WANT A COUNTRY

I want a country

Let the sky be blue, the bough green, the cornfield yellow

Let it be a land of birds and flowers.

 

I want a country

Let there be no pain in the head, no yearning in the heart

Let there be an end to brothers' quarrels.

 

I want a country

Let there be no rich and poor, no you and me

On winter days let everyone have house and home.

 

I want a country

Let living be like loving from the heart

If there must be complaint, let it be of death.

 

Translated by Bernard Lewis

AFTER DEATH

With many hopes about death we perished,

But the charm was broken in a vacuum.

Our song of love we cannot help exhume,

A view of the sky, tuft of twigs, bird's plume;

Living was a habit we had cherished.

 

No news comes from the world now or ever;

No one misses us, no soul cares to know,

The darkness of our night is endless, so

We might just as well do without a window:

Our image has faded from the river.

 

Translated by Talât Sait Halman

 

[From An Anthology of Turkish literature, Edited by Kemal Silay]