 After
Hikmet, the most widely translated Turkish poet of our time. He studied
at the Military High School on the Bosphorus and the War Academy and served
as an army officer for fifteen years. In 1950 he resigned his commission
to devote himself to poetry, and also ran a bookshop and publishing house.
He has written more than 70 books, but his fame rests on collections published
between 1940 and 1968: "The Child and God" (1940), "The
Legend of Cakir" and "The Stone Age" (1945), "Mother
Earth" (1950) and "ASU" (1955). In these books man assumes
the stature of myth. In "Haydi" (1968) he produced a cascade
of haiku-like quatrains of telling variety. He also wrote politically
motivated books like "Hiroshima" (1970) (from
Modern Turkish Poetry, ed. F. K. Fergar). |
