Since my Ezra Pound poetry "bootcamp" experience last summer, I have continued to write poetry, and once a month meet with a group of friends at a different cafe to share what we've written. I also have been, in an effort to improve my Turkish in a fun way, translating Orhan Velli's Complete Poems. I was shooting for one a day, but am lucky if I translate two a week. I hope to finish the translations this summer. The following poem, my first in Turkish, came out of my pen in Turkish, and surprisingly, the difficulty ensued when trying to translate the line, "Küçük zamanlar büyüktür," into English. Which adjective for büyük? Huge? Large? Big? Magnanimous?
Küçük Zamanlar
Tango provası yok, ama
çiçekler var.
Okulu sevmedim, ama
Duygu ile konuşmayı sevdim.
Küçük zamanlar büyüktür.
Ah, şimdi varolan rüyaları yazmak!
Small Times
There is no tango practice, but
there are flowers.
I didn’t enjoy school, but
I loved talking with Duygu.
Small times are large.
Oh, to write dreams that exist right now!
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