Category Archives: Reflections

January 22, 2017 · 9:00 am

Telepoem Booth in State College, PA ~ The First Year’s Collection ~ My Two Poems

“Congratulations!”

What do you think of incoming correspondences that start with this lovely C-word?

Over the years, I have received my share of the other kind: “We are sorry to inform you […]“. I don’t know about you but I most prefer the option on top…

To my delight, an email came into sight this past Wednesday with that C-word preceding its opening paragraph: “Five reviewers have sifted through 327 poems from 86 poets and would like to include the following poems that you submitted in the Telepoem Booth Collection.” The letter was from The Telepoem Booth Committee (I have tagged the name of each member). Assuming that I won’t miss the deadline to provide the committee with the recordings of my poems, they will be in the first year’s Telepoem Booth Collection. (Each contributing poet is offered professional readers but I am going to try it with my own voice first.) “The one in State College, location to be determined, will be the second in the nation (Telepoem Booth to Bring Poetry to Downtown State College)”.

My two poems below are the ones to be included in the State College Telepoem Booth Collection. They may seem familiar to you as I have posted them here before. Both have also appeared in The Year of the Poet, a monthly publication by Inner Child Press, Ltd. with the same titles: “Euterpe” and “inkpots” – which are, in my case, no formal titles but rather the initial verse):

Euterpe

i beg of you hear my plea
shield the natal passion
the first resolve to forget
the quest for the new breath
the now
the here

inspire
my desire
to define
the divine

rid me of yesteryear
free me from the self
watch my soul reject its cage
sate my shadow’s final plea
let it soar in its primal roar
see its essence prance in trance

help me shape the freshened day

~~~

© hülya n. yılmaz, March 20, 2015

inkpots

used to uncover the fading word

a second or more to gather the instant

to reminisce to reflect to feel to sense

to touch to hold the new breath

exhaling life at its worst

inhaling poetry

pre-natal

willed

pure

to surpass it all again and again

~~~

© hülya n. yılmaz, March 20, 2015

Related Links:
Telepoem Booth State College on Facebook
Philipsburg Journal

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January 15, 2017 · 7:00 am

After a month-long absence . . .

I am here again (and happy to see you haven’t left me).

Before 2017 became a reality, I had already made several changes of various nature. At home, in my work space, my mindset, and my blog site’s layout, appearance, and so on. As for my post today, the image below is not “it. Listen on, if you so choose: 

for-my-first-post-of-2017-1-15

[Free Online Image]

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December 11, 2016 · 7:00 am

And then she said I am taking time off…

to attend to the needs of self while accommodating those of the family.

Hoping to be back at my writing desk in the new year, I wish you all, dear reader- and-writer-comrades the best for now and beyond. ~ hülya n. yılmaz

 

solid-oak-handmade-spliced-swing-with-personalised-engraving-10867

Click for Image Credit

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Ve o sonra dedi ki: Bir süreliğine buradan ayrılıyorum…ailemin ihtiyaçları ile ilgilenirken kendi ihtiyaçlarıma da eğilebilmek üzere.

Yeni yılda yazı masama geri dönmüş olmayı ümit ediyorum. Bu ayrılığımın süreci içerisinde, sevgili okur- yazar yoldaşlarım, hepinize bugün ve ötesi için iyilikler dilerim. ~ hülya n. yılmaz

[Resimdeki tahta salıncağa kazılmış yazı: “Uçabileceğime inanıyorum.”]

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

 

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December 4, 2016 · 7:00 am

Once upon a time, there was a five-same sized-car-wide parking space…

let us say the allowed space is five-same sized-car-wide

no-brainer right
each parallels the other and stays inside the lines

the first driver though takes up one-and-a half parking slot
the second stretches over the next one-and-a half
now feeling also fully entitled
the third cuts corners for the fourth
angry at the time’s poor timing
the fourth settles for the last stall

but wait
didn’t we just say
the allowed space is
five-same sized-car-wide

no-brainer you said

is it

© hülya n. yılmaz, 11.29.2016

medium-dominoes-falling

original-size-dominoes-falling

large-dominoes-falling

[One Free Online Image – Annotated]

 

 

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November 27, 2016 · 7:00 am

…what happens in-between…

we are born alone to die alone
the self is either warmed up in-between
or under a lonesome cold

only the corpses get stiff i thought
not so when emotional touch is no more

© hülya n. yılmaz, 11.8.2016

the-lake-was-not-iced-so-i-found-something-that-was

[Own photograph; at Light on the Lake Bed and Breakfast, North East, PA]

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November 20, 2016 · 7:00 am

On Turkish Roads to the Legitimation of Child Rape: Remembering Nazım as a Form of Escapism

Turkey: Thousands protest against proposed child sex law

The news was impossible to disregard. Regarded it, I have. Writing my reaction to it in nonfiction, however, was far too disturbing of a thought for me – an older woman, born into and raised in a modernized Turkey before leaving for the now similarly tainted United States in pursuit of an advanced academic career decades ago. So: I have resorted to poetry…yet once again.

41_hikmet_hires-flat

My poem below first appeared here on October 19, 2014 in Turkish – the language in which I had initially conceived it, translating it to English shortly after. The photograph above of Nazım Hikmet, known as Nazım Hikmet Ran as well (1902-1963) had donned this page also back then. I am re-posting the poem in question with minor changes in their original articulations. This world-renowned exilic poet of Turkey had in persistence written – among numerous other humanity-related wrongdoings – on the objectionable status of Turkish women in their country of birth at large. I recognized Nazım’s deep-rooted concern inside me all over again in the face of the latest uproar in Istanbul, and so I reached for the prophetic conclusions he had drawn in his poem, “Kadınlarımız” (the italicized sections represent my direct quotes from Nazım).

Nazım Hikmet’i hatırlıyorum…

nasıl da iyi tanımış yurdun acı gerçeklerini
kadınımızdan biteviye esirgenenleri
ister olsun tek bir başına ister kocasının yanında
olsun varsın bir bebesi, o verici böğrünün öz yuvasında

ince, küçük çeneleri, kocaman gözleriyle
anamız, avradımız, yarimiz kadınlar
ama anaya yakışan saygıyı
analıklarında bile göremeyen analar
soframızdaki yeri öküzümüzden sonra gelen

doğurmasa, erkeğinin asla göze alamayacağı bir fedakarlıkla
hayatın yegane masumiyet hazinesini ona hediyeleyen
herkes ana oluyorları kendine defalarca yediren
gene de yüzlerinden tebessüm nadiren eksilen
aynı yorgun alışkanlık çemberine
mahkum edilen kadınımız

Nazım Hikmet’i hatırlıyorum…

nasıl da iyi tanımış senle beni,
onu şunu bunu
bizi sizi onları

bilmiş çok öncesinden bugünü geçmişi ve de geleceği
‘avradını, yarini’ analıklarında bile hiçe saymaya
ant içmiş erkeklerimizin tek toplar damarlı aile sofrasına
katmış cömert bir asaletle bu dahi destanına…

I am thinking of Nazım Hikmet…

How transparent our country of birth was to him
How deprived of life our women are
Whether single or decorating their husbands
With their babies cradled inside their selfless breasts

Our women with their fine, small chins and huge eyes;
Women that are our mothers, wives, lovers
But the kind of mothers
Who are robbed of motherly respect
Even in their motherhood

Our women who are forsaken
During meals for the sake of our oxen
Women who gift their men
Life’s ultimate treasure
A breath of innocence or more
If it weren’t for them
Whose men would never dare to undergo
The same great sacrifices of the self

Women who must tolerate
Their men’s oft-shouted ridicule:
Everyone can be a mother.
You are nothing special.

Women who nevertheless
Try not to neglect a smile from the face
Who are chained to the deadening same old tired rut

I am thinking of Nazım Hikmet…

How well he knew you me her us them
The present the past the future
Of his never-forgotten home
Of its single-veined patronizers

He knew it so well
That with his chivalric saga
He welded our women’s one-legged stools
Atop the food table of their men who seem to have sworn
To belittle their wives, their lovers even in their maternity divine…

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November 13, 2016 · 7:00 am

Alas! Malnourished, the Muse of Poetry fled me while I overindulged in negativity . . .

. . . into which November 9, 2016 – The Day After – keeps feeding still.

 

Related Readings:

The Incredible Reason You Might Start Seeing Safety Pins Everywhere

Dear White People, Your Safety Pins Are Embarrassing

 

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November 6, 2016 · 7:00 am

“i want my Poetry to . . .” Volume III, Another Inner Child Press Publication Underway

With my thanks to Inner Child Press, Ltd. for creating through its “Anthologies” another poetic platform under the guidance and leadership of  Gail Weston Shazor, I share with you  the poem of my contribution to Volume III of i want my Poetry to . . . (kindly note the short video-recording by Gail Weston Shazor following the end of my name down below).

i want my poetry to…

burn tears in your hearts
then bring them to the surface
before you decide you’d better cave in
to the pain and suffering etched ever so resiliently
in your past, present and future memories
when it’s time to have that wail explode
letting out that desperately patient standby “enough!”

i want my poetry to ease you then
into the arms of a selfless child-bearer
whose lullaby will tuck you in safely
under a snuggle-obsessed blanket-sleep
after having raised you from a darkest deep
together with the gentlest touch of other souls
which learned to utter only the tongue of love
their aura will entice you into a burial ground of ashes
where to lay to rest your ire and your innermost fears
to shed all your chains to be free of also the tears
which have been fiercely carved on earth
on its every hidden nook and cranny
since the birth of humanity

. . . be a break from life . . .

i want my poetry to weld with steel
the vital holes on your pails so frail
for you to be on your steadfast way
to flood in the universe with no delay
its tamest of waters on nature’s path
will gather for you to help you cleanse
your self-unforgiving self foremost
but won’t let you once forget all else
which you may have cursed in wrath
they will amass for you serene drops of bliss
to bathe under each the bitter ghosts of your ills
chafing away your immense boulder’s mass
for a modest few little whiles at last

. . . be a break from life . . .

i want my poetry to hold your hand
every time you must weather a storm
so that you know i too have been stained
the craftiest kind left me barren with all its might
hail rushed and wedded bloodcurdling thunders
lightening was only watching from afar at first
but then it exalted their union in a raucous roar
even snow flurries of my most loyal delight
showered the procession in a sliest twist

. . . be a break from life . . .

i want my poetry to waft you in the end
inside a cloud that is mate to the mild zephyr
to undiscovered lands as well to the Seven Seas
to the faraway councils of breath-taking skies
to the communes on the many luminous moons
to the cometic homes of ancient curiosities
in pursuit of the suns of the Egyptians
of the Hindu the Chinese the Japanese
of the Greek the Aztec the African
of the Navajo the Inca the Inuit
of the Sumerian the Roman

even though i don’t sing of elation alone . . .

© hülya n. yılmaz, 11.2.2016 (The inspiration came to me in installments: First, about a month ago; then two weeks later, and finally, last weekend.)

 

 

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October 30, 2016 · 7:00 am

A Haiku in Memory of Aylan Kurdi (2012/2013-2015)

curses to that sea
idyllic but merciless
why not lullabies instead

© hülya n. yılmaz, 10.27.2016

The title of my post today cites the name of only one child fed to the insatiable greed for power donned day after day by too large a number of supposed leaders of nations. The tragedy is that no list template is available to commemorate all the little darling delegates of innocence with their pre-death mark on earth; nor will such reminder be ever invented. 

“Aylan Kurdi’s story: How a small Syrian child came to be washed up on a beach in Turkey”

remembering-aylan-kurdi

[Image Credit: Free Online]

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October 23, 2016 · 7:00 am

. . . with my thanks to all who don’t play down the dark side of life

we all have so many scars
that we have grown roots
now rotting fast
in that favorite place of many a gathering
your kitchen my kitchen those dearest friends’ kitchen
grandma’s kitchen mama’s kitchen dad’s i too can cook-kitchen
each cupboard smelling like their pain med
poorly prescribed for their end
witches’ brew in a cauldron before us
even the back burner’s simmer-dial
scorches the ancestral ladle right off of our hand
the same hand we thought could control our fingers
which in turn would glow to show us whether to stir clockwise
or counter-clockwise
with rigor or not
how many times
for how long
when
why

our embarrassingly short short-term-memory
convinces us to believe fairy-tales all over again
that maybe just maybe
a tiny batch of soul food
would drizzle out of such gooey gunk
enchanting us in to our prenatal sheath
thus gifting us with a little breather
in order that we can tend our scabs
tend to the gashes in our hearts

instead

the immortal spell-thrower

engulfs us

with a flood of burning ashes
spooned right out of the pot of our own churning

and
our bruises
while still in their nth round of incrustation
turn blood red once more
because our systemic veins are wide-open yet once more 

© hülya n. yılmaz, 10.0.2016 

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