Full Description
Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation for Spring 2012.
This collection covers the broad vision of mankind's history with a story of an individual journey: a pilgrimage in south-western Anatolia. Filled with Islamic reference and imagery, Turkish poet Bejan Matur presents complex ideas about the immensity of time, space and the cosmos, with a simplicity of expression perfectly captured in Ruth Christie's translation.
"How Abraham Abandoned Me is an astonishing book... a compelling, surging poetry. The ideas come with a giddying headlong rush."
Ian Pople, Manchester Review
Lean over a well
Lean over and feel Gabriel's wings
and your lack of wings.
See there
how words exist
how a human being flows into another.
Perhaps what opens the way is darkness.
(from 'What Opens the Way is Darkness')
Bejan Matur has published four books of poetry, her first winning two major literary prizes. A translated selection of her poems, The Temple of a Patient God, was published by Arc in 2004. Matur's poetry has been translated into 17 different languages.
Ruth Christie was born in Scotland. Her recent translation of Poems of Oktay Rifat with Richard McKane (Anvil Press, 2007), was a runner-up in for the Popescu Poetry Prize.
Contents
Introduction / 9 I /ADAM'S LONELINESS THE SEVEN NIGHTS The First Night / 17 The Second Night / 22, The Third Night / 33, The Fourth Night / 39, The Fifth Night / 47, The Sixth Night / 49, The Seventh Night / 55, II AND ANGELS PERCH ON HIS RIGHT SHOULDER And Angels Perch on His Right Shoulder / 71, III / THE FIRST CONVERSATION The First Conversation / 79, Saint of the Source / 85, The Saint's Darkening Roses / 87, Abraham's Lake / 91, Your Truth / 93, What Opens the Way Is Darkness / 95 , Arid Amazement / 97, Land of the Sun / 99, IV TIGER STRIPES Tiger Stripes / 105, Kinship of Gauze / 109, The Time of Skirts / 111, Your Night / 115 , The North Gate / 117, Signs / 121, Remembering / 123, What the Iris Knows / 125, When the Wheat Is Cut / 127, Being / 129, Peaceful Morning / 129, Untold / 131, Old / 133, Before the Name / 133, Tick Tock / 139, Abandoned / 139, Home / 141, Biographical Notes / 147
