Translator’s Note
Navigating the borders of belief and unbelief, Zafer Şenocak’s poetry collection First Light (İlk Işık, 2016) references Anatolian mysticism alongside ancient Greek culture and Christianity. Through this syncretic approach, the poems in First Light present a fractured version of the self marked through and through by its encounter with others. As the translations below attest, this form of encounter is as much metaphysical as it is linguistic.
That which befell you neither occurred nor didn’t occur
You neither heard it nor didn’t hear it
You neither saw it nor didn’t see it
It was inside of you, it was your voice
But it was also outside, the voice of a stranger
It was both a voice and it wasn’t
It reached you and departed from you
It was the one arriving and departing
It was neither heard nor was it silent
Neither within nor without
It was the one waiting and not waiting for you
As for you, you were neither the one accompanying it
Nor standing afar from it
Catch fire now, but don’t burn
Remain where you are nothing
Başına gelen ne geldi ne gelmedi
Onu ne duydun ne duymadın
Ne gördün ne görmedin
İçindeydi senin sesindi o
Hem de dışarıda bir yabancının sesi
O hem bir sesti hem de değildi
Sana varmıştı ve senden ayrılmıştı
O hem varandı hem de ayrılandı
Ne duyuldu ne de sustu
Ne içeride ne dışarıda
Oydu seni bekleyen hem de beklemeyen
Sense ne ona eşlik edendin
Ne de uzağında duran
Tutuş şimdi ama yanma
Hiç olduğun yerde kal
At the end of every season
You must sadly but freely
Touch the words
A story growing
on silent but full lips
You must create a face, a glance anew
Forgotten words come to mind while making love
Were there also those kinds of words
Present but absent, open but closed
A handful of sky behind a door
The sun’s dust will rise soon
At the end of every season
A new world
A new sun will appear
From the doorway
Her mevsimin sonunda
Hüzünle ama özgürce
Dokunmalı sözcüklere
Suskun ama dolgun dudaklarda
Büyüyen bir hikâye
Bir yüzü bir bakışı yeniden yaratmalı
Sevişirken unutulan sözcükler gelir insanın aklına
Böyle sözcükler de mi vardı
Var ama yok kapalı ama açık
Bir kapının ardında bir avuç gökyüzü
Güneşin tozu kalkacak birazdan
Her mevsimin sonunda
Yeni bir dünya
Yeni bir güneş görünecek
Kapının aralığından
Discover the place where you live
While gently searching
For a word on your own
With every return
The familiarity of the place into which you have withdrawn
Compels you to say – it is what it is
Is it raining outside?
Let there be no refuge for a single overflowing drop
Just down there behind the wall
There is a reckless world
Wrapping itself around
Your tongue and your bones
An arrogant tongue wrapped openly in letters
There is no need to descend in order to become smaller
As you expand to the firmament
You vanish inside what you already know
Isn’t everything about vanishing without diminishing
For all beings
As long as sadness doesn’t transform into effort
Spring never comes
The word’s rightful owner
Sent you inside himself
To see
You have no choice but to be like an eye
You’ll endure these walls
And every corner you press your ear against
Will emerge without having found a place to hide
Do you have a choice but to remain under surveillance?
To be silent
To be silent while looking at yourself?
The thing you are searching for is neither inside or out
It’s on the edge of your memory
Like a man, sitting at the water’s edge
The water is the image he is thinking of
And the wisteria on the hilltops is the painter’s dream
Perhaps he didn’t want to hide
But don’t think about that
Thinking will hurt the water’s skin
Usul usul kendi kendine
Bir sözcük ararken
Yaşadığın yeri keşfet
Her dönüşte içine kapandığın mekânın
Olduğu kadar oldu dedirten alışılagelmişliği
Dışarada yağmur mu var
Taşıran bir damla olmasın sığınağı
Az ötesinde dilini ve kemiğini saran
Duvarın ardında delidolu bir dünya
Apaçık harflere bürünmüş tafralı bir dil
Azalmak için alçalmaya gerek yok
Semaya açılan da bildiği şeyin içinde
Yok oluyor
Yaşayanlar için her şey
Azalmadan yok olmaktan ibaret değil mi
Hüzün gayrete dönüşmedikçe
Bahar gelmez
Söz sahibi görmek için
İçine göndermiş seni
Göz olmamak gibi bir seçeneğin yok
Bu duvarla dayanacaksın
Kulağını dayadığın her köşe
Saklanılacak bir yer olmaktan çıkar
Göz altında olmamak gibi bir seçeneğin var mı
Susmak kendi kendine bakarken susmak
Aradığın ne içerde ne dışarda
Belleğinin kenarında
Su kıyısında oturan adam gibi
Su onun düşündüğünün resmidir
Tepesindeki salkımlar ise ressamın hayali
Belki saklanmak istemiyordu
Düşünme onu
Düşünmek acıtır suyun tenini
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Zafer Şenocak was born in Turkey and moved to Germany as a child; he has lived in Berlin as a freelance writer since 1989. Şenocak has written widely on issues of diversity in Germany, migration and exile, the Turkish diaspora, and the small distances and great fears of a globalizing Europe. Historical questions of mixed and broken identities are key to his novels, which utilize nonlinear modes of storytelling to emphasize the fragmented nature of memory. His writing includes poetry in German and Turkish, novels, and long essays. He is also a frequent contributor to nationwide German newspapers, like Tageszeitung, Tagesspiegel and Die Welt. Şenocak’s work has been translated into English, Spanish, Italian, French, and Czech. He has been a writer in residence at UC Berkeley, M.I.T., Oberlin College, Dartmouth College, and the University of Arizona. A volume of his German-language poems appeared in English translation as Door Languages in 2008 (trans. Elizabeth Oehlkers-Wright, Zephyr Press). And his essay collection Atlas of a Tropical Germany was edited and translated by Prof. Leslie A. Adelson in 2000 (Nebraska Press).
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Kristin Dickinson is an assistant professor of German studies at the University of Michigan. She is a scholar of German and Turkish literature, with interests in questions of world literature, translation, migration, and multilingualism. Her book, DisOrientations: German Turkish Cultural Contact in Translation (1811-1946), was published by Penn State University Press in 2021. Together with her diverse articles, it challenges racial, ethno-linguistic, and geopolitical definitions of German- and Turkishness by highlighting longstanding histories of literary-cultural contact and exchange. Her translations from German and (Ottoman) Turkish have appeared in TRANSIT, the Turkish-German Studies Yearbook, Words without Borders, EuropeNow, and a PEN Translation Slam.
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