The lines quoted above come from a book-length poem by Cahit Koytak, a distinguished Turkish poet. In Turkish, the poem is called ‘Gazze Risalesi’ and addresses two Josephs in turn, one a Palestinian boy exposed to the bombing of Gaza, and the other an Israeli young man, a bomber pilot. Cahit Koytak talks to them both as if he’s their… continue reading
Category Middle East
The Caged Parrot Watches the Demons Dance
This piece returns to a preoccupation of my own, concerning language. What is the point of writing, the point of taking a position and then articulating it ?
And of course that leads to the question, why keep writing these stanzas, these mere words amid all the bizarre and frantic and disastrous political action going on all round us, mere… continue reading
Despatches to my Gazan Son
Justin C McIntosh has given his permission for his photograph above to be used for the cover of a long Turkish poem by Cahit Koytak, now published as a book with an English translation alongside. I am proud to have been one of the translators.
The original Turkish poem is called Gazze Risalesi. In English we have made that title… continue reading
Autumn UK 2016
Today our skies evicted the swallow and the swift was banished weeks ago and in Dorset the house martin whose tiny mud globes once crammed the eaves was simply absent all year. And last week Putin, unrestrained, bombed hospitals in Aleppo and Trump continued his debasing of America and Theresa May declared the date of Britain’s embrace of… continue reading
Despatches to my Gazan Son
At the end of last year I translated into English a long poem by the distinguished Turkish poet Cahit Koytak. In Turkish, the poem is called “Gazze Risalesi.” It was written in 2008, but could just as easily have been composed last Summer, during the Israeli bombings which took place then, too. It seems that not much has changed in… continue reading