SALİH BOLAT
(1956)

ETCHİNG

these mountains where i have died many deaths

this timorous child

this flattened wind

this black howling at the door

this deep-blue dead-woman sea

rising from her sleep at the horizon

this barren path at the colt's feet

this fish drowning in shallow waters

these are not it

these are an etching of despair

despair: not till the last nail in my coffin.

THE CHASE

every morning

a bullet wedges in my sleeplessness

i awaken a dead soldier in my bed

beard of blood wrapped around the wind

i get up to clean my shaving mirror

why this glassy stain of night?

i wipe it but it grows bigger

will my face fade in this dark?

Translated by Yusuf Eradam and Michael Gurian

Salih Bolat was born in Adana in 1956 and completed his elementary through high school education there. He graduated from the Department of Social Politics at the Ankara Academy of Economics and Trade Sciences (1980). He completed his doctorate at Hacettepe University. He is currently a faculty member. He was on the editorial board of the journals Koza, Petek, Yapıt and Yarın. He has published books of essays and criticism. His first literary work was his short story entitled Çöpçü/Garbage Man published in the newspaper Yeni Adana (1975). He has also been published in journals like Yeni Olgu, Türkiye Yazıları and Düşler. In his socially oriented poetry, he depicts the individual’s distress and pain, and the details of life. He has an imagist and lyrical style. His books of poetry: Yaşanan/What Is Lived (1983), Bir Afişin Önünde/In Front of a Poster (1986), Sınır ve Sonsuz/Limit and Infinity (1988), Karşılaşma/Encounter (1993), Uzak ve Eski/Distant and Old (1995), Gece Tanıklığı/Witness to the Night (1999), Açılmış Kanat/Spread Wings (2004) and Kanıt/Evidence (2006).