Travel Tips

I put some poems from him. He had many wonderful poems. He is the greatest poet for me. Awarded a peace prize, which he shared with Pablo Neruda and Paul Robeson. (1950) From Pablo: ‘Nazim Hikmet is a world poet because he spoke of the yearnings of people in all geographies, not about what the art of poetry had until then taken such pains to describe.Many poets, writers wrote after his dead. I added Chilian poet Pablo Neruda's and Russian poet Yevgeni Yevtusenko's poems at the end. But I couldn't find English versions of them yet.

"living! Like a tree alone and free Like a forest in
brotherhood" is a sentence from one of his poems.

THE STRANGEST CREATURE ON EARTH

You're like a scorpion, my brother,

you live in cowardly darkness

like a scorpion.

You're like a sparrow, my brother,

always in a sparrow's flutter.

You're like a clam, my brother,

closed like a clam, content,

And you're frightening, my brother,

like the mouth of an extinct volcano.

Not one,

not five-

unfortunately, you number millions.

You're like a sheep, my brother:

when the cloaked drover raises his stick,

you quickly join the flock

and run, almost proudly, to the slaughterhouse.

I mean you're strangest creature on earth-

even stranger than the fish

that couldn't see the ocean for the water.

And the oppression in this world

is thanks to you.

And if we're hungry, tired, covered with blood,

and still being crushed like grapes for our wine,

the fault is yours-

I can hardly bring myself to say it,

but most of the fault, my dear brother, is yours.

Nazim Hikmet - 1947

ON LIVING
I
Living is no laughing matter:

you must live with great seriousness

like a squirrel, for example-

I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,

I mean living must be your whole occupation.

Living is no laughing matter:

you must take it seriously,

so much so and to such a degree

that, for example, your hands tied behind your back,

your back to the wall,

or else in a laboratory

in your white coat and safety glasses,

you can die for people-

even for people whose faces you've never seen,

even though you know living

is the most real, the most beautiful thing.

I mean, you must take living so seriously

that even at seventy, for example, you'll plant olive trees-

and not for your children, either,

but because although you fear death you don't believe it,

because living, I mean, weighs heavier.
II

Let's say you're seriously ill, need surgery -

which is to say we might not get

from the white table.

Even though it's impossible not to feel sad

about going a little too soon,

we'll still laugh at the jokes being told,

we'll look out the window to see it's raining,

or still wait anxiously

for the latest newscast ...

Let's say we're at the front-

for something worth fighting for, say.

There, in the first offensive, on that very day,

we might fall on our face, dead.

We'll know this with a curious anger,

but we'll still worry ourselves to death

about the outcome of the war, which could last years.

Let's say we're in prison

and close to fifty,

and we have eighteen more years, say,

before the iron doors will open.

We'll still live with the outside,

with its people and animals, struggle and wind-

I mean with the outside beyond the walls.

I mean, however and wherever we are,

we must live as if we will never die.

III

This earth will grow cold,

a star among stars

and one of the smallest,

a gilded mote on blue velvet-

I mean this, our great earth.

This earth will grow cold one day,

not like a block of ice

or a dead cloud even

but like an empty walnut it will roll along

in pitch-black space ...

You must grieve for this right now

-you have to feel this sorrow now-

for the world must be loved this much

if you're going to say ``I lived'' ...

Nazim Hikmet

February, 1948

LETTER TO MY WIFE-1933- Bursa Prison

My one and only!

Your last letter says:

"My head is throbbing,

my heart is stunned!"

You say:

"If they hang you,

if I lose you,

I'll die!"

You'll live, my dear-

my memory will vanish like black smoke in the wind.

Of course you'll live, red-haired lady of my heart:

in the twentieth century

grief lasts at most a year.

Death-

a body swinging from a rope.

My heart can't accept such a death.

But you can bet

if some poor gypsy's hairy black

spidery hand

slips a noose

around my neck,

they'll look in vain for fear

in Nazim'S blue eyes!

In the twilight of my last morning

I

will see my friends and you,

and I'll go

to my grave

regretting nothing but an unfinished song...

My wife!

Good-hearted,

golden,

eyes sweeter than honey-my bee!

Why did I write you

they want to hang me?

The trial has hardly begun,

and they don't just pluck a man's head

like a turnip.

Look, forget all this.

If you have any money,

buy me some flannel underwear:

my sciatica is acting up again.

And don't forget,

a prisoner's wife

must always think good thoughts.
Nazim Hikmet

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

I was born in 1902

I never once went back to my birthplace

I don't like to turn back

at three I served as a pasha's grandson in Aleppo

at nineteen as a student at Moscow Communist University

at forty-nine I was back in Moscow as the Tcheka Party's guest

and I've been a poet since I was fourteen

some people know all about plants some about fish

I know separation

some people know the names of the stars by heart

I recite absences

I've slept in prisons and in grand hotels

I've known hunger even a hunger strike and there's almost no food

I haven't tasted

at thirty they wanted to hang me

at forty-eight to give me the Peace Prize

which they did

at thirty-six I covered four square meters of concrete in half a year

at fifty-nine I flew from Prague to Havana in eighteen hours

I never saw Lenin I stood watch at his coffin in '24

in '61 the tomb I visit is his books

they tried to tear me away from my party

it didn't work

nor was I crushed under the falling idols

in '51 I sailed with a young friend into the teeth of death

in '52 I spent four months flat on my back with a broken heart

waiting to die

I was jealous of the women I loved

I didn't envy Charlie Chaplin one bit

I deceived my women

I never talked my friends' backs

I drank but not every day

I earned my bread money honestly what happiness

out of embarrassment for others I lied

I lied so as not to hurt someone else

but I also lied for no reason at all

I've ridden in trains planes and cars

most people don't get the chance

I went to opera

most people haven't even heard of the opera

and since '21 I haven't gone to the places most people visit

mosques churches temples synagogues sorcerers

but I've had my coffee grounds read

my writings are published in thirty or forty languages

in my Turkey in my Turkish they're banned

cancer hasn't caught up with me yet

and nothing says it will

I'll never be a prime minister or anything like that

and I wouldn't want such a life

nor did I go to war

or burrow in bomb shelters in the bottom of the night

and I never had to take to the road under diving planes

but I fell in love at almost sixty

in short comrades

even if today in Berlin I'm croaking of grief

I can say I've lived like a human being

and who knows

how much longer I'll live

what else will happen to me

Nazim Hikmet

(this autobiography was written in east Berlin on 11 September 1961)

These poems written for him, after his dead. Unfortunately I couldn't find English versions yet.

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) Chilian poet

GÜZ ÇiÇEKLERiNDEN NÂZIM'A ÇELENK

Niçin öldün Nâzim?
Ne yapariz simdi biz
Sarkilarindan yoksun?
Nerde buluruz baska bir pinar ki
onda bizi karsiladigin gülümseme olsun?
Seninki gibi atesle su karisik
aciyla sevinç dolu,
gerçeğe çağiran bakisi nerde bulalim?

Kardesim,
öyle derin duygular, düsünceler yarattin ki bende,
denizden esen aci rüzgâr
kapacak olsa bunlari
bulut gibi, yaprak gibi sürüklenir,
yasarken seçtiğin
ve ölümden sonra sana barinak olan
oraya, uzak toprağa düserler.

Al sana bir demet Sili kasimpatlarindan,
al güney denizleri üstündeki ayin soğuk parlakliğini,
halklarin savasini, kendi dövüsümü
ve yurdumun kederli davullarinin boğuk gürültüsünü
kardesim benim, dünyada nasil yalnizim sensiz,
çiçek açmis kiraz ağacinin altinina benzeyen yüzüne hasret,
benim için ekmek olan, susuzluğumu gideren,
kanima güçveren dostluğundan yoksun.

Hapisten çiktiğinda karsilasmistik seninle,
zorbalik ve aci kuyusu gibi los hapisten,
zulmün izlerini görmüstüm ellerinde,
kinin oklarini aramistim gözlerinde,
ama parlak bir yüreğin vardi,
yara ve isik dolu bir yürek.

Ne yapayim ben simdi?
Tasarlanabilir mi dünya
her yana ektiğin çiçekler olmadan?
Nasil yaşamali seni örnek almadan,
senin halk zekâni, ozanlik gücünü duymadan?
Böyle olduğun için tesekkürler,
tesekkürler türkülerinle yaktigin ates için.

Çeviren: Ataol Behramoğlu

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Yevgeni Yevtusenko (d.1933) Russian poet

NÂZIM'IN YÜREGi

Usaninca gerçeklerin yalanindan,
kaygan, yüzsüz baskidan,
tunç Nâzim'i animsarim
ve sesini
biraz hançerimsi :
"Merhaba kardasim...
Ne o, neden yüzün asik öyle
Bos ver!
Yoksa siir mi takildi bir yerde?
Gel, birlikte bitirelim.
Paran mi yok?
Bakariz bir çaresine, dert değil.
Kiz mi?
Aldirma bulunur..."
Oysa asil kendisinde var bir sey,
içini kemiren
yüz çizgilerinden dehsetle akan :
"Hepsi iyi de,
şu yürek ağrisi...
Adam sen de
ağriyadursun, yasiyoruz ya..."
Kimisi için siir bir roldür,
Kimisine bir dükkân,
kazançtir.
Onun içinse ağridir siir,
rol değil.
Nâzim'in yüreği de ağridi durdu iste.
Üzerine titreyen doktoru bir gün,
hani pek de güvenemeyerek,
uyarmisti beni :
"Bakin" demişti,
"keskin konulardan kaçinin ki
ağrimasin Nâzim'in yüreği..."
Hey gidi doktor...
Hastaniz gitti.
Yaramadi çabalariniz.
Yüreğiyse onun
gizli gizli çarparak
sürdürdü ağrisini
ölümünden sonra da.
içindeki aci için ağriyor,
Türkler için, Ruslar için ağriyor,
kendisi gibi mahpusta özgür olanlar için
özgürlükte mahpus gibiler için
ağriyor.
Hapishane acilariyla yanan o yürek
- ölümden sonra bile -
dinlemiyor doktorlari,
korkak olduğumuz zaman
ağriyor.
Neme gerek dersek
ağriyor.
Onun gibi açik yürekle :
"Merhaba kardasim..."
diyemezsek ağriyor...

Varsin ağrisin
hepsi için yüreklerimiz,
tek ağrimasin Nâzim'in yüreği.

Çeviren: Ziya Yamaç

Some poems with music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc7SFXjig6s&mode=related&search=
Nazim-Memleketim (My country)-Fazil Say, Zuhal Olcay-ENGLISH SUBTITLE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Mq9Ri8CjMg
-Ben iceri dustugumden beri- TURKISH

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiAWmexF8ZA&mode=related&search=
Nazim Hikmet is still continuing to be a traitor-Fazil Say, Genco Erkal-ENGLISH SUBTITLE

(Pianist Fazil Say, he is also composer, very famous. Zuhal Olcay is singer and artist. Genco Erkal very good theatre player. )

This page is also about him:
http://209.85.129.104/search?q=cache:Yi_jkD5zkjMJ:www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php%3Ft%3D185378+%22cloud+in+love%22%2B%22nazim+Hikmet%22&hl=tr&ct=clnk&cd=11&gl=tr