A. Kadir Paksoy | Bio And Poems

A. Kadir Paksoy’s Poems 

Translated by Baki Yiğit

 

A. Kadir Paksoy was born in Darende county of Malatya province, Turkey (1954). After graduating from the Gazi Education Institute in Ankara, he studied at Eskişehir Anadolu University, Department of History.

After teaching in various parts of the country, he settled in Ankara. He retired as a history teacher in 2002.
In 1987, he published the New Poetry magazine with a group of young poets. After this magazine, which could be published in 16 issues, he started to publish his products in the Anatolian Culture magazine, which was published together with Ümit Sarıaslan in 1990. This magazine was published in 40 issues at intervals until January 2001.
He was able to continue the Tan Literature magazine, which he started to publish alone at the end of 2005 and published “as long as he provided quality products and money” only for six issues.
A. Kadir Paksoy has been “exiled to the French language” since 2009. He became “communed” in his retirement to the French language which he has flirted throughout his life with, and he continues to translate poems, especially from contemporary French poets.
The poet, who is deemed worthy of many awards, has sixteen poetry collections. Finally, his collective poems were published as Kadir Bey History and My Mother Loved Me Most in Life.

 

A POET

Who is a poet
Maybe the one who has got a little more share of the storm
Maybe a little closer to the sun
Maybe a street lamp
Giving light during the day too

Maybe he has won the sky’s affection a little more
For this reason it rains onto the roof of his house more
And drops are well behaved more
For keeping the harmony among words

He is closer to the sky and the sun
But he is not a prophet
He invites nobody to his way
Maybe he is lonelier than God

It briefly means that
He is one of us
The only difference is that
He sells “poem sandwich”
In return for a sincere smile
On the days of scarcity

 

LOOKING FOR POETRY

I returned home empty-handed
again today.
I’d been looking for a little poetry in everything;
That was my whole problem.

When I just went in,
I heard the sound of poetry:
“But you’ve forgotten me.”

I turned and looked in the direction where the voice came from,
Nobody was there.

Then I came into my own
Hearing my mother’s pitying voice:
“What happened to you, my son?
You were talking to yourself again!…”

 

THE DOOR TO THE SKY

Yesterday morning as I was coming back home feeling too miserable
I saw the birds shouting and calling out and crying together.
I waved my hand and asked one of them:
What’s wrong with you?
Why are you going up into the sky,
And turning back again and again?

The poor little bird replied:
We’re looking for the door to the sky.
Do you know where it is?
Ah! I said to the bird,
If I know, I tell it.
I’ve been looking for that door for centuries, too.
This is why I write poems.

 

 

CURIOSITY

When I die one day
My wife and daughter will weep for me
At most a few friends of mine will worry
See here do you hear Kadir died they will say
And they will come to condole my daughter and my wife

I’m not corious about all these
No matter to die one day before or after
Will my mother hear my death in her grave
That’s what I want you to tell me

 

 

AUTUMN RUSH

Here came autumn again
Standing up to its stick of juniper
It brought off the last fire
The deep river of solitude on its forehead

Here came autumn again
Bald as a coot
Barefooted
Get on sorrow saying ‘This is my fate’
Like a dervish

Again autumn came here
The vessel by which we were earning our livelihood had been scrapped
Before autumn came
The cellar is empty
What do we need to do
My mom who could find somehow
Is absent now

It happened like this every year
As I am expecting nobody
And angry with kith and kin
Autumn knocks at the door
At the very time when I am about to go
Away.