TRANSLATING THE COUNTERCULTURE The Reception of the Beats in Turkey by Erik Mortenson / Southern Illinois University Press / 978-0809336548 / 2018 The premise is a fascinating one. Erik Mortenson actually was IN Turkey during its attempted coup in 2016 and had to leave with his family. He taught at the Koç University in Istanbul, so this is no thesis conducted from afar. … [Read more...]
All the Notes of the World Symphony
I am a red Laz boat cruising on the mountains of Kurdistan where my Kurd and Turk brothers are burning by falling on the ground syllable by syllable None of the requiems is able to express the pain of the stone-throwing Kurdish children raped in the hell prisons of Fascist-Kemalism I picked up Armenian roses from my dreams against racism in Turkey Impish … [Read more...]
Revenge of the Imagist Socialist Poetry
We are the revenge of all oppressed, despised, ignored, exploited, beaten, insulted, neglected, abused, molested humans in the world as being fighters for their rights with our poems and essays. We are the revenge of the Poetry Art and we are fighting for poetry ethics against the decadent poets/poetesses who exploit Poetry for their own social rant seeking and for hunting … [Read more...]
Imagist Socialist Poetry and Objective Reality
[Editor's note: Serkan Engin is a socialist Laz poet-author from Turkey. He aims to launch a new movement in Turkish poetry and to that end has published numerous articles about literary theory, beginning with his 2004 manifesto, "Imagist Socialist Poetry."] Poetry is the organization of the poetic images around one one more themes, forming completeness, according to imagist … [Read more...]
