Nurduran Duman is a Turkish poet, writer, essayist, translator who lives in Istanbul. She wrote her first poem when she was 8 years old. When she was 9, she promised herself to be a writer in the future. She liked poetry, became a poet.
Because of her passion about “sea” she attended Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering and graduated as an “Ocean Engineer” and a “Naval Architect”.
Her poem collection “Yenilgi Oyunu (The Defeat Game)” has been awarded with 2005 Cemal Süreya Poetry Awards. These awards are conferred to in memory of Cemal Süreya (1931 – 1990), one of the most important poets in Turkish Literature.
Her book Yenilgi Oyunu was published in 2006.
She translated Alma Alexander’s book “The Secret of Jin-shei” from English to Turkish. The book was published in Turkish in 2007.
Her poems, translations (poems and stories), poetic articles, book reviews and interviews with foreign writers (e.g. Eileen Gunn, Karen Joy Fowler, Yiyun Li, Anna Tambour, Monica Arac de Nyeko etc.) have been published in various magazines and newspapers.
She worked on the poetry of Anne Sexton, Sara Teasdale, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Slyvia Plath, and translated their poems.
She was elected two times as a board member of Writers Syndicate of Turkiye.
She is a member of Turkish PEN.
She was the producer and presenter of the culture and literature broadcast (radio) “Yazin Küresi”.
She has been conducting many theatre activities in various positions (actress, director, theater electrician, etc.) for years.
good news! the sun has come back rose watchers
hurray! for so many years by now
I had no ill-willed leaf fall on my garden
dream I had, I washed the nights in my sleep
I burned, its mast was made of a dark blue line
decayed, its sail cloths were patchy
now, all rivers to the sea!
blood, tips of nerves every one
kidney stones all to the sea!
I saw faces looking at the sea
their keys were between two eyebrows
their path passed through two forests
towards my heart. My heart don’t ever keep silent
this flutter, this love!
Hey, the one whose way of loving I love
Come on, to the sea.
Nurduran Duman
© translation Neslihan Akkar
Sea Language and Literature 6
I am a seashell listen to me
what I sing is brook mouths, isthmuses
I woke up deep sands, undercurrent liquids
let me rest at the bay’s hillock
my shadow is moss, its green vein is cut
I kiss and blow cloud to the pain in the stone
phew black water bags ugh sluices
let your ear hear to get well: your inner voice’s oppressed
with roses, r’s, rejoices
I have sewed a new world atlas
never mind if its two rivers are missing
spread me. read. then spear me.
Nurduran Duman
© translation Neslihan Akkar
Where ever I go, the Rainbow
as this foggy road where you anchored
disappears amongst the flower chips…
you fill the latest summer fragrances in my eyes
that I come back, that I laugh once again
because your eyes are…so much full of, so many roses
leaves and leaves of the linden trees…
I opened you. for many years your mouth was locked
close to my left arm under my skin
you slowly blossomed once again. your heart felt as if
I fell into an earthenware pot. it fired my heart thoroughly
neither a rupture nor a scratch: not a single unhealed wound
I have now. your hands are sharpest silks, most elegant needles
you embroidered my skin. you blew your breath upon my tongue
my anger ceased, my lips are needle lace.
now as foggy woods tend to vanish ahead of me
this steep road…which at its end you let your hair
that it be my broom to fly with or
in the colorless wells where you threw your eyes
that I hang onto their black to come ashore
it seems hard for me to fall deeper. probable that I go further.
because the rainbow you spread out at my rainless sky
is both my edge and my end.
Nurduran Duman
© translation Neslihan Akkar
Published with the permission of Nurduran Duman