Fine Days
These fine days have been my ruin.
On this kind of day I resigned
My job in 'Pious Foundations'.
On this kind of day I started to smoke
On this kind of day I fell in love
On this kind of day I forgot
To bring home bread and salt
On this kind of day I had a relapse
In my versifying disease.
These fine days have been my ruin.
Commentary
How about starting a collection of poems on Monday morning blues? Here’s a poem which makes me wonder if going going to work is the best way to spend a fine day..
Translated by Bernard Lewis.
Prose and practicality win over the whimsical, and I get to work. But the poet’s description of his versifying disease and gleefully ruined life make me smile. Yes, even on a Monday morning :-)
For the incorrigible, here’s the original in Turkish:
“Guzel Havalar
Beni bu guzel havalar mahvetti,
Boyle havada istifa ettim
Evkaftaki memuriyetimden.
Tutune boyle havafa alistim,
Boyle havada asik oldum;
Eve ekmekle tuz goturmeyi
Boyle havalarda unuttum;
Siir yazma hastaligim
Hep boyle havalarda nuksetti;
Beni bu guzel havalar mahvetti.
Biography
Turkish poet; born, 1914, Istanbul; died, November 14, 1950, Istanbul.
Orhan Veli Kanik was one of the founders of the Garip movement in Turkish poetry. In 1941, he and two of his close friends – Melih Cevdet Anday and Oktay Rifat –burst on the scene with a joint book of poems entitled “Garip” (Strange). Amid much vehement criticism from the traditionalists, the three Garip poets vowed, in a manifesto that appeared in their book, to revolutionize Turkish poetry. They sought, in their own words, “to alter the whole structure from the foundation up. In order to rescue ourselves from the stifling effects of the literatures which have dictated and shaped our tastes and judgements for too many years, we must dump overboard everything that those literatures have taught us. We wish it were possible to dump even language itself, because it threatens our creative efforts by forcing its vocabulary on us when we write poetry.”
The Garip movement eliminated not only rigid forms and meters but also metaphors, rhymes, conventional diction and stock epithets. Soon free verse and an unlimited range of themes became the rule, while ‘aruz’ meter and ‘the rose and the nightingale’ became anachronisms.
Orhan Veli was more influenced by the sketch image of the Japanese haiku than by Turkish or conventional Western poetic sources.