Orhan Veli

DALGACI MAHMUT

Language: turkish
Translations: english (WOOL - GATHERER), german (Faulenzer Mahmut), french (MAHMUT LE JE M’EN FOUTISTE)

DALGACI MAHMUT

İşim gücüm budur benim,
Gökyüzünü boyarım her sabah.
Hepiniz uykudayken.
Uyanır bakarsınız ki mavi.

Deniz yırtılır kimi zaman,
Bilmezsiniz kim diker;
Ben dikerim.

Dalga geçerim kimi zaman da,
O da benim vazifem;
Bir baş düşünürüm başımda,
Bir mide düşünürüm midemde,
Bir ayak düşünürüm ayağımda,
Ne haltedeceğimi bilemem

Orhan Veli

photo © Yapi Kredi Publishing
* 13.04.1914, Istanbul, Turkey
† 14.11.1950, Turkey
Orhan Veli was one of the most innovative poets in 20th-century Turkish Literature. He left Istanbul University in 1935 without having completed his studies. He worked in the Ankara Post Office until he was called up during World War II. On his discharge in 1945 he obtained a post as translator in the Ministry of Education but left his job after less than two years to lead a bohemian life.

His first poems were published in journals when he was a high school student. In 1941, he published a poem book entitled Garip/The Stranger with his high school friends, the poets Oktay Rifat and Melih Cevdet Anday, which launched a major poetry movement in the Turkish poetry tradition.
His legacy was that free verse, and an unlimited range of themes became the rule, while traditional meter became an anachronism. While discarding rhyme and meter, Orhan Veli expresses an almost nihilistic world view that placed him firmly in the company of the modern western man.

photo © Yapi Kredi Publishing
Publications

  • Garip

    Istanbul, Resimli Ay Matbaasi, 1941

  • Vazgeçemediğim

    Istanbul, Marmara yayinevi, 1945,

  • Destan Gibi.

    Istanbul, Ölmez Eserler, 1946,

  • Yenisi.

    Istanbul, Inkilap Kitabevi, 1947

  • Karşı

    Istanbul, Güney Matbaacılık ve Gazetecilik, 1949,

  • Bütün Şiirleri (Collected Poems)

    Istanbul, Varlik Yayinlari, 1951,

  • Just For The Hell Of It

    111 Poems by Orhan Veli

    Istanbul, Multilingual Yayinlari, 1997,

  • Fremdartig.

    Frankfurt, Dagyeli, 1985

  • Bütün Şiirleri (Colected Poems).

    Istanbul, Yapi Kredi, 2003,

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