VarlikEurozineVarlik2012-08-27Summary: Varlik 8/2012Mustafa Serif Onaran
Experienced sensitivities in Metin Altiok's poetry
Onaran discusses the poet's marriages, which did little to save him of his solitude, his weakness for alcohol and his last days in hospital, seeking the traces of the poet's life on his work.Ismail Mert Basat
"Firmly grasping embers"
Basat says, "Although the subjects of his poetry are scorching, Altiok's poems are written in a soft tone and simple language. He writes as if talking to himself; even when he employs dialog, he is in fact talking with himself. The subject of the poem is 'me' and 'me' means everyone."Ahmet Telli
Metin Altiok: A poet with a heavy heart
Telli traces the path of Altiok from his first poems printed in the Soyut magazine to his last poetry collection Soneler (Sonnets).Yasar Günes
Realization of a genre's shortcomings
Günes complains that the readily visible references are wrongly used to jump to conclusions about Altiok's poems, and says, "It must be noted that his poetry works less with poetic loads that are shaped by words, and more with the emotional and mental loads of a subject in a given circumstance."Betül Yazici
A poet alienating himself from himself
Yazici says, "The line 'I was there against me' in the last section of Altiok's poem 'Evde Yoklar (They Aren't Home)' openly refers to Nietzsche's monk who knows that his solitude will render him an other to himself. This concept is not Aristotle's 'other self' or Ricoeur's 'self as other' but the concept which Nietzsche defines as 'the opposition of a self to another,'" and analyzes Altiok's poetry in terms of form, language, meaning and communication.Yusuf Cotuksöken
Was the language reform necessary? did it accomplish its purpose?
Cotuksöken says, "A number of liberals and the majority of conservatives (and Islamists) oppose the Turkish Revolution in general and dislike the Language Reform in particular. They keep repeating that language needs evolution, not revolution. I don't think they believe what they say. If humanity had made done with evolution so far, had no revolutions been made, what would have become of the world and its inhabitants?"Betül Cotuksöken
The anthropontological foundation of the language reform
Betül Cotuksöken says, "Thought becomes manifest on language and the written manifestation of thought in particular erects sociality, historicity and culturality. The written form of thought creates the objectified collective memory of humankind," and emphasizes the importance of language policies in the nation-building process.Haydar Ergülen
North
An essay questioning the geographical positioning of Cemal Süreya, Turgut Uyar, Ece Ayhan, Sezai Karakoc, Ilhan Berk, Edip Cansever and Necip Fazil's poems.Tuncer Ucarol
Women of literature before the 21st century
An assessment of the ratio of female to male writers and poets in literary encyclopedias and comparisons of education levels, genres written in and changes in ratios over the years.Gürsel Korat
Art and novel I
Korat compares genres of art and novel, and says, "Novel is the way of narrating the place and the time within each other. Art narrates the time within the place. Art is a window; it is a view of the world from a rectangular frame. When a piece of art is hung upon a wall, the wall is no longer one-dimensional and gains depth; art does not possess the symmetry of a mirror that simply 'duplicates' the room. To the contrary, art reduces the room, gives its viewer a perspective, and makes him look 'outside'."Türkan Yesilyurt
Forms of court poetry in Talat Sait Halman's poems
Yesilyurt says, "Halman writes rubais on love, justice and nomadic life, and his poems on nomadic life bear the traces of Shamanist Turks."Cetin Yigenoglu
The rise of occultism 1: Solitude of the particles
Yigenoglu says, "In the past, 'cultural imperialism' meant that individuals and societies would be disconnected from their local particularities and alienated to themselves and their own cultures. The new imperial design says, 'don't be my lookalike; if you want, you can act and live "as if" you were like me.'"Hakan Bilge
An underground song
An essay on French writer Jean Genet's first and only film Un Chant D'Amour made in 1950.Hüseyin Yurttas
The notepad
Yurttas narrates a memory with Aziz Nesin and comments on the Melih Cevdet Anday Poetry Prize.Tozan Alkan
Translated Pages in the Book
An essay on the relation of poet Metin Demirtas to translated poetry.