Those who nourish themselves on meats, dairy products and desserts
Cannot estimate you at your fair value.
Even if stone cracked, you cannot make them open
The windows of their farm …
People like you are not included in their center of interest
You do not exist …
Hereafter you must know
That they do not have time to bless you!
Their eyes are always fixed from above you
While they bow
With smiles above their double chins
Before the sovereign...the sultan.
Do you think for an instant that they acknowledge you?
If you ask my opinion on this subject
It is because the ends of their twine
Are in the hands of other people.
Don't take exception to the fact
That they are taken for kings!
Do not wait for them
In the wrong places
Vainly hoping
They will consider you a man …
Even if you write hundreds of letters
To these men of the closed doors
Intending to see or speak to them
You will not receive a single response …
Be wary and attentive;
Above everything
Allow them their haughty airs.
By thinking themselves important
They will look at you scornfully!
They well like fondling
Each others' backs …
It is no longer to the point
To listen to their dialogues "with admiration"
To extol their writings "enthusiastically"
To reward their facts "by clapping" …
Do not waste your time
Or put your attention here …
Think of other things.
by Uzeyir Lokman Cayci.
Paris, 20.06.2007.
French free verse translated into English free verse
by Joneve McCormick.
“Uzeyir Lokman Cayci is a poet, a writer, a versatile artist... He was born in 1949 in Bor that is one of the beautiful cities of Turkey. He attended primary and high school there. And then he graduated as an Architect - Designer of Industry from The Fine Arts Academy of State in Istanbul. His important works are, Akşamların Durağı , Karar, he has many poetries, stories and articles as well. It was called every body attention to his fine arts drawing / painting pictures since 14 years old. His poetries were translated into French by Yakup YURT who loves art. The Reward of Eagerness was given by The Radio NPS of Holland in 1999 and The Reward of Palmares was given by The Organization of Les Amis de Thalie in France to him. He placed in a poem competition from the same Organization at the same year too. He works in The Center of Adult Education ( AFPA) at present.”
“In the Spring of 2002, my dear friend, Sara Russell, Editor of Poetry Life and Times (UK) contacted me via e-mail, asking me whether I would volunteer to translate several poems by an internationally well established and highly creative Turkish poet, Üzeyir Lokman Çayci, who currently resides in France. I gladly obliged, and even offered to translate into English for the August, 2002. While Üzeyir Lokman Çayci is a very popular poet in Europe, he is not well-known in North America. Since so much of his poetry has been translated into equally fine French verse, and is now being gradually translated into English as well, I thought best to formally introduce one of the world's most illustrious poets to the North American literary scene. I should also note, in passing, that Üzeyir Lokman Çayci has his official Turkish-French translator, Yakup Yurt, who has consistently penned some very moving French renditions of Üzeyir's original Turkish verse. Since I myself, as one of three or four English translators (the others being F.J. Bergmann and Joneve McMcCormick) , do not understand Turkish at all, I must rely completely on the faithfulness of Yakup Yurt's French translations. That his translations are both accurate and just we may, however, rest assured. It is also notable that all of his English translators have exercised the same measure of care and sensibility in their translations of Üzeyir Lokman Çayci's splendid poems. This can be readily attested by the fact that there exists a remarkable consistency in wording and in tone of the English translations effected by the translators mentioned here.- Richard VALLANCE.”
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