Today is the birthday of Özdemir Asaf, who passed away 36 years ago and still remembered dearly by Turkish literature fans.

We got quite interested in literature when we were in high school, and Özdemir Asaf was one of the poets who taught us how deep and sophisticated Turkish language can be. Even his shortest poems are enough to make us think.

We wanted to remember him on his birthday.

He has a lot of poems and it is hard to pick the favorite ones, but to give an idea we wanted to write the names of his poems that we love.

• Oranda  (we love this poem, but we couldn’t find its translation)
• 2=1
• Sisyphus
• It Wasn’t Me
• Lavinia

A lot can be lost in translations, considering the language barriers. It is hard to translate assonance and alliteration. Still Özdemir Asaf’s poems in English are beautiful and will make you think. You can check out Dum as an example.

Love,

Övgü ve Öykü