The Poet Has Died
By Lüsan Bıçakçı,
Translated by Donny Smith
-for Zahrad
His soul has flown off
And left its body behind
On his bed, like an empty envelope
Lying there with its flap open
The poet seems to have died
With his last poem
Written to us without words.
Şair Ölmüş
-Zahrad için-
Ruhu uçmuş
Gövdesini yatağında bırakmış
Boş bir mektup zarfı gibi
Ağzı açık öylece kalmış
Meğer şair ölmüş
Son şiirini bize
Sözcüksüz yazmış
From Dilsiz ve Ağır (Artshop, 2012)
* for the Armenian Turkish poet Zareh Yaldızcıyan (Zahrad), who died in 2007
*
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).