Nazim Hikmet is a Turkish poet, with an acclaimed fame for the 'lyrical flow of his statements' and especially for love poems in the international arena. He is known as one of the greatest international poets in the twentieth century, his poems being translated over fifty languages. He spent many years in prison during his time because of political charges. He contrasts his situation with a man who was jailed for man slaughter and smuggling which beautifully depicts that no matter how right a person is, call it zeitgeist or paradigm, governing dynamics which are rarely ideal and free from international constraints and pressure rules a person's fragile life. The following poem is it's manifestation, in my own translation.
Since I Got in Prison
"Since I got in (prison), around the Sun, ten times revolved the Earth
If you ask to it: 'Not to mention, a microscopic time…’
If you ask me: ‘Ten years of my life…’
I had a pencil, in the year I got in
Writing and writing, worn out in a week
If you ask to it: ‘An entire life…’
If you ask me: ‘Oh man, a week or two...’
Osman who was imprisoned for murder;
Got out, since I got in, completing the seven and a half.
Wandered around out for sometime
Then got in (prison) again for smuggling
Completing six months, got out again.
Yesterday his letter arrived; got married, will have a baby in the spring…
Now they are ten years old children,
those who fell into the mother's womb at the year I got in
And the colts with long shivery feet of that year are
Mares with wide ridges already, for a long time by now
But olive saplings are still saplings, still kids.
I heard new squares are opened
in my distant city, since I got in…
And our household, lives in a house
That I never saw, in a street where I don’t know.
Like cotton, pure white was the bread,
in the year I got in
Then it was added to the ration card
In our place, in prison
People shot each other, for a fist size
Pure black victual
Now it got free again, but brown and tasteless
In the year I got in, the second hadn’t started yet
Furnaces at the Dachau Camp were not lit,
the atom bomb was not dropped on Hiroshima
Like a slaughtered child’s blood, time flowed
Then officially closed was that chapter, now
the american dollar is talking about the third
But still the sunshine against everything,
Since I got in
And from the edge of the darkness,
placing their heavy hands on the pavements
they rose half way
Since I got in, around the Sun, ten times revolved the Earth
And with the same passion I repeat again
‘They are those who:
are as many as
the ants in the earth,
the fish in the water,
the birds in the sky.
Fearful, courageous, ignorant and childish
And the depressing creator that they are,
In the songs, you only find their adventures’
And all the rest
For example, my ten year stay in prison is
Mere rhetoric"
1948
From the same oratorio of Fazil Say's. Nazim Hikmet Ran's words are voiced by Genco Erkal accompanied by the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra.
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