Dream-Weary
By Lüsan Bıçakçı,
Translated by Donny Smith
If I knew something of the wheat
If I understood something of the fishermen’s sustenance
Of the water’s tongue
Of the soil’s
Then it would not be so hard
To carry the stars.
Düş Yorgunu
Biraz buğdayları bilsem
Balıkçıların rızkından anlasam
Biraz suyun dilinden
Biraz toprağın
O kadar güç olmayacak
Yıldızları taşımak.
From Bana Sözlerin Kaldı (Hera Şiir, 2001)
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Lüsan Bıçakçı was born in 1968 in Adıyaman and moved to Istanbul with her family in 1972. She graduated from the Faculty of Industrial Engineering at Istanbul Technical University in 1989 and obtained her master's degree from the same university in 1992. She worked as an engineer for Turkish Airlines from 1990 to 2014. She has published two books of poetry: Bana Sözlerin Kaldı (Hera, 2001) and Dilsiz ve Ağır (Artshop, 2012). She participated in the Armenian Writers Composing in Foreign Languages Conferences held by the Armenian Writers Union in Yerevan in 2013 and 2017. Some of her poems have been translated into Armenian and published in Armenia. She is married and has two children.
Donny Smith was born in Nebraska but teaches at a high school in Istanbul. His books of translations include Pigeonwoman by Cemal Süreya (with A. Karakaya; Indiana University), I Too Went to the Hunt of a Deer by Lâle Müldür (Artshop), and If Cutting Off the Head of the Gorgon by Wenceslao Maldonado (Ediciones Patagónicas).