26.06.2006 TURKISH DAILY NEWS
 PROFESSOR HALMAN
RELEASES TURKISH POETRY ANTHOLOGY
Professor Talat
Halman, Chairman of Bilkent University’s Turkish Literature department, released an
English-language anthology of modern Turkish poems in the United States, his office
announced in a written statement.
The book titled “A Brave New Quest: 100 Modern Turkish Poems” is a representative
selection of modern Turkish poems that conveys the broad range of Turkish humor,
intellectual exploration, love, politics, social justice and the excitement of the Turkish
passion for poetry.
The poems featured within this work are able to stand on their own as exquisite examples
of the Turkish poetic experience and the poems’ artistic composition, integrity and
representation will be of great interest to anthologists, cultural and literary historians
as well as poetry lovers.
The book, which begins with a short preface by Halman on modern Turkish poems as well as
biographical notes on poets, was published by U.S.-based Syracuse University Press, one of
the leading university publishing houses of the United States.
Featuring a wide variety of poems about social justice, love, evocations of history,
humanitarian concerns and other themes, the 205-page book contains stirring selections of
the revolutionary romanticism of Nazım Hikmet, the passionate wisdom of Fazıl Hüsnü
Dağlarca, the captivating wry humor of Orhan Veli Kanık, the intellectual complexity of
Oktay Rıfat and Melih Cevdet Anday, the modern mythology of İlhan Berk, the subtle
brilliance of Behçet Necatigil as well as Necip Fazıl Kısakürek, Ahmet Muhip Dıranas,
Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı, Atillâ İlhan, Edip Cansever, Cemal Süreya, Ece Ayhan, Kemal
Özer and Ülkü Taner.
The poems in the book are vibrant with their own unique flavor while speaking in an
unmistekable universal style and the translations follow or replicate the original forms
and rhyme-patterns.
Edited and translated by Halman, the book’s associate editor is Jayne L. Warner,
director of research at the Institute for Aegean Prehistory in New York.
The anthology is available in the United States from Syracuse University Press and outside
the United States from Eurospan, 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU, U.K.
or from the Web site www.eurospanonline.com.
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