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I'VE LEARNT, IT HURTS TO BE IN THIS WORLD All the crimson stones on earth Are smeared with god’s blood. And so it is these crimson stones Instruct us in our youth. God, beside us In our childhood, Touches our earrings, Our necklaces too; Enters our shoes, the folds Of our girlish ribbons And hides. I should buy a crimson dress and bed, A crimson ring And lamp. That time must come When motherhood begins, then peters out. Blood that knows to wait Knows also to be stone. I’ve learnt, it hurts to be in this world. Crimson dark Blue dark And the beginning Must surely make sense, - Neither god nor our mothers desert us. BEJAN MATUR Translated from the Turkish by George Messo BEJAN MATUR was born in 1968 in the village of Maksuttushaa near Kahraman Marash in south-eastern Turkey. A graduate of the Faculty of Law at Ankara University, her award-winning first collection 'Ruzgar Dolu Konaklar' (Windswept Mansions) was published in 1996. Her second collection, 'Tanri Gormesin Harflerimi' (Let God Not See My Letters) appeared in 1999. Her third collection is due in Summer 2002. She lives in Istanbul. GEORGE MESSO was born in 1969. His books include 'From The Pine Observatory' (Halfacrown Books, 2000), 'Framing Reference' (Ed. Valerie Kennedy, 2001) and 'The Complete Poems of Jean Genet' (translated with Jeremy Reed). He has received a Council of Europe Translation Award for his versions of Rilke and is Hawthornden Fellow in Poetry for June/July 2002 at Hawthornden Castle, Scotland. He is the editor of the international journal Near East Review and teaches at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey.
Notice © 2002 IP and the author
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