Eda: An Anthology of Contemporary Turkish Poetry

 

Eda: An Anthology of Contemporary Turkish Poetry
Murat Nemet-Nejat, ed.
ISBN 1-58498-034-6
$27.95

The only anthology to date to track the development of one of the great poetic traditions of our time. Nemet-Nejat offers an introduction to modern and contemporary Turkish poetry, until now largely unknown in the West.

"We have had far few instances of American poets dedicating years of their working life to the labor of love that translation involves; we have had even fewer instances of major projects from vast and essential poetic traditions that not only intervene directly in the life-forms of American English poetry and poetics, but also reverberate back into their space of origin and influence the ways in which that tradition perceives itself. No one has managed to do this for contemporary Arabic or Farsi poetry, two of the three great and related traditions of that part of the world, but Murat Nemet-Nejat's remarkable anthology has given us Turkish, the third of that triumvirate. Pushing and pulling at the same time, Eda stretches our tongues and minds here while opening new pages in the Turkish book there. We ignore such work at own own peril: we're in another world, and Murat Nemet-Nejat welcomes us to it." -Ammiel Alcalay

"For Nemet-Nejat, eda stands as the variegated essence of all the authentic hallmarks of Turkish culture and poetry. In an important sense, it is what makes Turkish poetic creativity both universal and uniquely original. Nemet-Nejat's Eda is a probing and provocative venture into that compelling terra firma." -Talit Sait Halman