I Did Not Come into the World
MÜESSER YENİAY
Neither I had a mother
nor I was a mother
of a child
I did not come into the world
my lovers were husbands of others
I could not complete
a half
I leaned over words
so that they see the poverty
that melts
I could not find any human-being
everybody is gnawing on
my pain
I decreased myself
I do not want to be more
than any reason
Maybe I Have Dropped
There, in that basket
remains that I walked
childhood
is the crust that you scattered within you
there are candies of earth
earth itself is a candy
it melts, your legs get wrapped around
to pass on all the ways
over all the roads
of childhood
a tree stands in its place with all its branches
but where is my childhood?
By the Voice of an Unborn Child
My eyes are closed
with my body that sucked
light of darkness
here I am sleeping
I do not know my body yet
which curls like a snake
a shadow within
a human within
memories of future are in my mind
somebody will come
and take me to the world
I suppose
to that neverworld
to that cosmic wound
to that green time
when words are shepherds
here every sleep is morning
no eyes
this trip which goes
inside
a dream bell jar
here like a brooch attached to a women’s heart
I am standing
—as if a woman left me I am sleeping—
my mind does not have thought
nor my heart has feeling
walls of my room is my second skin
as I am here without father
I play with
my toy-god
I am one of the people who are invited to the world
this womb cellar in which I stay
like a pot
telling me what it is going to tell
by its shadows
I have heard I have so much time to go to the world!
Step-World
There is nobody within night
this white wall to which I touch with my voice
darkness is like a ball of string
filling inside me
there is nobody within night
my body is dead which likes to revive
my light wrecked darkness
they call it world
the things which
head for me without stop
I cared for the bees of silence
night and day
my ears are walls that do not let
the world in
I wiped the glass of my heart
in my body just it leaves stains
it was heart
whatever it showed was time!
I was naked here
where light peels off
my skin
this world where I came
as if I wanted to be a child
of a women who never gave birth
—is step
Sand
They carried my heart and left here all together
with its sand
the weather is so calm
that the birds of silence are rising
let no light but darkness be
so that we can close the eyes that want to be open
did not the one who gave birth to us
also give birth to our pain?
—indeed which motherhood is holy?—
they left me here
looking at sand
like a hill
if my skin had remained in my mother
I would never ask anything from her
MÜESSER YENİAY was born in İzmir, 1984; graduated from Ege University, with a degree in English Language and Literature. She got her M.A from Bilkent University on Turkish Literature. She has won several prizes in Turkey including Yunus Emre (2006), Homeros Attila İlhan (2007), Ali Riza Ertan (2009), Enver Gökçe (2013) poetry prizes. She was also nominated for Pushcart Prize 2016 by Muse Pie Press in USA.
Her first book Darkness Also Falls Ground was published in 2009 and her second book I Founded My Home in the Mountains is a collection of translation from world poetry. Her second book I Drew the Sky Again was published in 2011. She has translated the poems of Persian poet Behruz Kia under the name of Requiem to Tulips. She has translated Selected Poems of Gerard Augustin together with Eray Canberk, Başak Aydınalp, Metin Cengiz (2011). She has also translated Personal Anthology of Michel Cassir together with Eray Canberk and Metin Cengiz (2011). Lately, she has published Contemporary Spanish Anthology with Metin Cengiz and Jaime B. Rosa. She has also published a book on modern Turkish Avant-garde poetry The Other Consciousness: Surrealism and The Second New (2013). Her latest poetry book Before Me There Were Deserts was published in 2014 in İstanbul.
Her poems have appeared in the following magazines abroad: The Voices Project, The Bakery, Sentinel Poetry, Yellow Medicine Review, Shot Glass Journal, Poesy, Shampoo, Los Angeles Review of Books, Apalachee Review (USA&England); Kritya (India); Casa Della Poesia, Libere Luci (Italy); Poeticanet, Poiein (Greece); Revue Ayna, Souffle, L’oiseau de feu du Garlaban (France); Al Doha (Qatar); Tema (Croatia).
Her poems have been translated into English, French, Serbian, Arabic, Hebrew, Italian, Greek, Hindi, Spanish and Romanian. She participated in the poetry festivals like Sarajevo International Poetry Festival, September 2010 (Bosnia-Herzegovina); Nisan International Poetry Festival, May 2011 (Israel); Belgrad International Poetry Festival, September 2012 (Serbia); Voix Vives International Poetry Festival (Sete), July 2013 (France); Kritya International Poetry Festival, September 2013 (India), Galati/Antares International Poetry Festival, June 2014 (Romania), Medellin International Poetry Festival, July 2014 (Colombia).
Müesser is the editor of the literature magazine Şiirden (of Poetry). She is currently pursuing a Phd in Turkish literature at Bilkent University, Ankara, and is also a member of PEN and the Writers Syndicate of Turkey.