Millennium of Turkish Literature : a concise History

Fazıl Hüsnü Dag˘larca
(1914–2008)
In Turkish poetics, the quatrain holds a signifi cant and time-honored place 
both as a stanzaic unit and as an independent verse. In classical poetry, its 
dominance was second only to the couplet, and most of the prominent poets 
produced—in the tradition of Omar Khayyam—an impressive body of 
rubai
s, 
four-line epigrammatic verses 
(a a b a).
 The Turks also evolved the four-line 
tuyug˘,
 also in the 
a a b a
 rhyme pattern, but composed in a special quantita-
tive meter and usually confi ned to philosophical comments. In folk poetry, the 
quatrain was—and still is—the essential stanzaic unit, and among its most 
memorable achievements are the enchorial 
mani
s, quatrains by anonymous 
poets, written in syllabic meters.
With the advent of modernism, many structural changes, including the com-
plete breakdown of stanzaic forms, came about. As a consequence, very few of 
the leading modern poets have used the quatrain. One major exception is Fazıl 
Hüsnü Dag˘larca. In most of his multitudinous poems, Dag˘larca has used the 
quatrain in all its aspects—rhymed and unrhymed, scanned and free, intact 
and fragmented.
 Soft The 
Faithless
 
The mouth 
When quiet
 
Of a hungry man 
They have no tongues
 
Makes the bread 
When talking
 
Come alive 
They have no mouths
 
Cats 
God and I
 The 
widow’s 
He
 
Cat 
Is the poet of his job
 
Is warmer 
I am the god
 
Than the bride’s cat 
Of mine

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Republic and Renascence
113
When the fat stars glide,
Darkness gets fed.
Th
e wind sleeps on the hills of gluttony.
One can’t sleep it off when he’s hungry.
Hunger is black on our faces, hunger is hoary.
Meadows and hills hunger.
Rain falls no more and the crops are scorched.
How did we anger the skies far and wide?
Hunger is black on our faces, hunger is hoary.
One can’t live on it when he’s hungry.
Modern Turkish poetry, with its notable diversity, has arguably repli-
cated and emulated the typology of verse in the contemporary world. It has 
run the gamut from rigid formality to completely free verse, from surreal-
ism to neoclassicism, from cubism to socialist realism, from symbolism to 
concrete (or found) poetry. A minuscule anthology of brief excerpts and 
epigrammatic poems can serve as a testament to such versatility:
nebuchadnezzar turned into idols
the lovely women strolling the hanging gardens
having embraced the timeless gardens
I have kept those women to myself
Asaf Hâlet Çelebi (1907–58)
Let me visit you at your home,
Make me coff ee;
Out of a freshly fi lled pitcher
Pour me water—
Th
at’s all I want
Ziya Osman Saba (1910–57)
Say Istanbul and towers come to mind
If I do a painting of one, the other one grumbles.
Th
e Maiden’s Tower ought to know that’s the way the cookie crumbles:
She should marry the Galata Tower and have lots of kids.
Bedri Rahmi Eyuboğlu (1913–75)

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114
A Millennium of Turkish Literature
If stars catch sight of your beauty in me
Th
ey will fall into my inmost sea one by one
And sunlight will engulf me in such splendor
You will come to me . . .
Celâl Sılay (1914–74)
No, my lovely one,
no, my antelope-eyed,
no, my heart’s conqueror.
Th
ere’s one thing possible and lovely right now:
to love you up in fl ames.
A. Kadir (1917–85)
So the headlines of daily papers should read:
Beam like a rose, laugh like a rose, be a rose.
Ceyhun Atuf Kansu (1919–78)
Crows are the choicest fl owers
Of my eyes
Sabahattin Kudret Aksal (1920–93)
I know they cannot survive in the sun
Or in the aura of love
Injustice
Fear
Hunger
Necati Cumalı (1921–2001)
All colors gathered dirt at the same speed
Th
ey gave the fi rst prize to white.
Özdemir Asaf (1923–81)
Does one wait for lovely days to enjoy them
Waiting itself is lovely too
Arif Damar (b. 1925)
I had said: I want to live living,
And yet now on this roof willy-nilly

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