Selected Poems

by Nâzım Hikmet

Though his work is well-known on the Continent, this is Hikmet's first appearance in English.-- from the jacket.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1967

About the author

Nazim Hikmet was born on January 15, 1902 in Salonika, Ottoman Empire (now Thessaloníki, Greece), where his father served in the Foreign Service. He was exposed to poetry at an early age through his artist mother and poet grandfather, and had his first poems published when he was seventeen.

Raised in Istanbul, Hikmet left Allied-occupied Turkey after the First World War and ended up in Moscow, where he attended the university and met writers and artists from all over the world. After the Turkish Independence in 1924 he returned to Turkey, but was soon arrested for working on a leftist magazine. He managed to escape to Russia, where he continued to write plays and poems.

In 1928 a general amnesty allowed Hikmet to return to Turkey, and during the next ten years he published nine books of poetry—five collections and four long poems—while working as a proofreader, journalist, scriptwriter, and translator. He left Turkey for the last time in 1951, after serving a lengthy jail sentence for his radical acts, and lived in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, where he continued to work for the ideals of world Communism.

After receiving early recognition for his patriotic poems in syllabic meter, he came under the influence of the Russian Futurists in Moscow, and abandoned traditional forms while attempting to “depoetize” poetry.

Many of his works have been translated into English, including Human Landscapes from My Country: An Epic Novel in Verse (2009), Things I Didn’t Know I Loved (1975), The Day Before Tomorrow (1972), The Moscow Symphony (1970), and Selected Poems (1967). In 1936 he published Seyh Bedreddin destani (“The Epic of Shaykh Bedreddin”) and Memleketimden insan manzaralari (“Portraits of People from My Land”).

Hikmet died of a heart attack in Moscow in 1963. The first modern Turkish poet, he is recognized around the world as one of the great international poets of the twentieth century.

Reviews

[Rifat · Rating 4 out of 5]

"আর মানুষের মুণ্ডুটা তো বোঁটার ফুল নয়!
যে ইচ্ছে করলেই ছিঁড়ে নেবে।"

We had Kazi Nazrul have our rebel poet Kazi Nazrul Islam & the Turkish have their own man Nâzım Hikmet Ran.

"কৃষ্ণপক্ষ রাত্রে কোথাও আনন্দ সংবাদের মতো ঘড়ির টিক্ টিক্ আওয়াজ;
বাতাসে গুন্ গুন্ করছে মহাকাল।
আমার ক্যানারীর লাল খাঁচায়
গানের একটি কলি;
লাঙ্গল চষা ভূঁইতে-
মাটির বুকফুঁড়ে উদগত অঙ্কুরের দুরন্ত কলরব;
আর এক মহিমান্বিত জনতার বজ্রকণ্ঠে উচ্চারিত ন্যায্য অধিকার।
তোমার আর্দ্র ওষ্ঠাধর কম্পমান,
কিন্তু তোমার কণ্ঠস্বর শুনতে পেলাম না।"

A friend of mine sent me a link of a poem recitation by Shohortoli Band & the title was জেলখানার চিঠি ( Bengali version of Karıma Mektup/Letter to My Wife by Nâzım Hikmet ).
You can enjoy this one because the recitation was wonderful🖤


I was overwhelmed & I'm. This is how I got acquainted with Nâzım Hikmet.
The above lines are from Karıma Mektup translated in Bengali (জেলখানার চিঠি) by Subhash Mukherjee.

Coming to this book.....
Selection was good. I loved most of them. When I was reading Letter to My Wife, I again realised," How sweet own mother language is!" Poems from known language is awesome to read.
If I were capable of understanding Turkish! :(

~29 December, 2020


***If you are interested, the link is for you- Selected Poems by Nâzım Hikmet

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really beautiful poems, which stand as solid proof that political poems can maintain their power long after the specific incidents which inspired them.

[Madeline Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

fascinating to have found this by happenstance at a used bookstore, a poet i'd never heard of. written under the context of turkish communism—antifascist, anticolonial, political yet full of longing and love. poems written for his wife and freedom while imprisoned, really interesting stuff. shaved a star off for what seemed to be hostility toward religion here and there (as seems to be common with atheist communists) but an otherwise incredible collection

"You and I know, my dearest,
we can teach:
to fight for our people
and day by day, a little more from the
heart,
a little more sincerely
how to love."

[Courtland Bethune · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the most beautiful poetry I've ever read. Stunning.