Poetry. Translated from the Turkish by Julia Clare Tillinghast and Richard Tillinghast. Edip Cansever is an existential poet, not a historical poet. He seldem refers to his city's history, almost never mentions Istanbul's mosques, fountains and so on that Orhan Pamuk invokes, though perhaps it is to the city's disappearing grandeur that he glancingly alludes when he writes in "Precipice" of "A slowly burning brick barn / Hung with crystal chandeliers," as an analogy to how one's personality uses itself up in order to be reborn as something new: "I am passing out of my original form / by consuming it."

Author City: Istanbul TUR

Edip Cansever (1928-1986) was one of a group of poets known as Ikinci Yeni, or "Second New," the second wave of Turkish poets to embrace Modernism. Like Orhan Pamuk, Cansever was secular in outlook, looking to Europe for literary examples while at the same time deeply engaged with the struggles of people in his own country and grounded in the life of his native city, Istanbul. Philosophically attuned to Existentialism, his poetry has an exuberance and imaginative range that will remind readers of the French Surrealists.

Reviews and Other Links
Larry O. Dean at New Pages
"Table" @ Poetry Daily