Nâzım Hikmet

Nâzım Hikmet (20 November 1901 – 3 June 1963) was a Turkish poet and dramatist, who is widely regarded as the best-known Turkish poet in the West; his works have been translated into several languages.

Quotes

Don’t live in the world as if you were renting
Or here only for the summer,
But act as if it were your father’s house.
Believe in seeds, earth, the sea
But people above all.
Grieve for the withering branch,
The dying star,
And the hurt animal.
But feel for people above all.
Rejoice in all the earth’s blessings –
Darkness and light,
The four seasons,
But people above all.
- From Last letter to my son, as quoted in Nel cuore delle parole. Alla scoperta del gusto di comunicare

It's this way:
being captured is beside the point,
the point is not to surrender.
- From It's This Way

You waste the attention of your eyes,
the glittering labour of your hands,
and knead the dough enough for dozens of loaves
of which you'll taste not a morsel;
you are free to slave for others—
you are free to make the rich richer.
The moment you're born
they plant around you
mills that grind lies
lies to last you a lifetime.
You keep thinking in your great freedom
a finger on your temple
free to have a free conscience.
Your head bent as if half-cut from the nape,
your arms long, hanging,
your saunter about in your great freedom:
you're free
with the freedom of being unemployed.
You love your country
as the nearest, most precious thing to you.
But one day, for example,
they may endorse it over to America,
and you, too, with your great freedom—
you have the freedom to become an air-base.
You may proclaim that one must live
not as a tool, a number or a link
but as a human being—
then at once they handcuff your wrists.
You are free to be arrested, imprisoned
and even hanged.
There's neither an iron, wooden
nor a tulle curtain
in your life;
there's no need to choose freedom:
you are free.
But this kind of freedom
is a sad affair under the stars.
- From A Sad State Of Freedom

I'm twenty-seven,
she's seventeen.
"Blind Cupid,
lame Cupid,
both blind and lame Cupid
said, Love this girl,"
- From A Spring Piece Left In The Middle

I've never regretted I was born too soon.
I'm proud to be
a child of the twentieth century.
I'm satisfied
to join its ranks
on our side
and fight for a new world...
- From On the Twentieth Century (12 November 1941)

My country or the stars
Or my youth, what's farthest?
- From In the Snowy Night Woods (10 March 1956)

The strangest of our powers
Is the courage to live
Knowing that we will die,
Knowing nothing more true.
- From In the Snowy Night Woods (10 March 1956)

Loneliness feels like prison.
- From New Year's Eve (23 March 1956)

The world's not run by governments or money
but people rule
a hundred years from now
maybe
but it will be for sure.
- From Optimism (12 September 1957)

Separation isn't time or distance
it's the bridge between us
finer than silk thread sharper than swords
- From Separation (6 June 1960)

Because of you, each day is a melon slice
smelling sweetly of earth
Because of you, all fruits reach out to me
as if I were the sun.
Thanks to you, I live on the honey of hope.
You are the reason my heart beats.
Because of you, even my loneliest nights
smile like an Anatolian kilim on your wall.
Should my journey end before I reach my city,
I've rested in a rose garden thanks to you.
Because of you I don't let death enter,
clothed in the softest garments,
and knocking on my door with songs
calling me to the greatest place.
- From Because of You (29 August 1960)

All I wrote about us is lies
All I wrote about us is the truth
- From About Us (30 September 1960)

Welcome baby,
It's your turn to live,
They lie in wait for you, chicken pox, whooping cough, smallpox,
Malaria, TB, heart disease, cancer, and so on.
Unemployment, hunger, and so on.
Train wrecks, bus accidents, plane crashes, work accidents,
Earthquakes, floods, droughts, and so on.
Heartbreak, alcoholism, and so on.
Nightsticks, prison doors, and so on.
They lie in wait for you, the atom bomb, and so on.
Welcome baby,
It's your turn to live.
They lie in wait for you, socialism, communism, and so on.
- From Welcome (10 September 1961)

You're my bondage and my freedom,
my flesh burning like a naked summer night,
you're my country.
Hazel eyes marbled green,
you're awesome, beautiful, and brave,
you're my desire always just out of reach.
- From You're

Looking at this insolent earth,
you hear the first battle cry of our species-
trap it under a rock
and together, screaming, attack
and destroy it, as if killing a mammoth.
- From Human Landscapes from My Country, Book Two, Section VII

At eighteen the heart shoots like a pebble from a slingshot
and the head doesn't sit on the shoulder.
- From Human Landscapes from My Country, Book Two, Section VII

At eighteen you sleep without memories.
- From Human Landscapes from My Country, Book Two, Section VII

At eighteen you don't think about memories,
you tell them.
- From Human Landscapes from My Country, Book Two, Section VII

This earth will grow cold,
a star among stars
and one of the smallest,
a gilded mote on blue velvet—
I mean this, our great earth.
This earth will grow cold one day,
not like a block of ice
or a dead cloud even
but like an empty walnut it will roll along
in pitch-black space...
You must grieve for this right now
—you have to feel this sorrow now—
for the world must be loved this much
if you're going to say "I lived"...
- From On living

Today is Sunday.
For the first time they took me out into the sun today.
And for the first time in my life I was aghast
that the sky is so far away
          and so blue
          and so vast
              I stood there without a motion.
Then I sat on the ground with respectful devotion
leaning against the white wall.
Who cares about the waves with which I yearn to roll
Or about strife or freedom or my wife right now.
The soil, the sun and me...
I feel joyful and how.
- From Today is Sunday

External links

Encyclopedic article on Nâzım Hikmet on Wikipedia
Media related to Nazım Hikmet Ran on Wikimedia Commons