NURDURAN DUMAN

Doves’ Coo

–for bird-watchers who cannot look at the children flying through the immigration sky–

go on beating emptiness your wings will happen somehow

you’ll be an angel after three wishes after three stages
what can your hands do now But Because And After Yet
look how beautiful these conjunctions walk on their wide runway
young life rings walk through peppery air do your feet see them
Or is also a conjunction, in our basket a tricycle
for our neighbour country border in connecting lands and seas
this lame circle will also turn this age overturn and turn

you’re always with white perched quenched either or
Or is a conjunction quenched and perched
you’re snow white standing by white besides you didn’t see didn’t hear
if it befalls you have in mind Or is also a conjunction
if it contricts your throat you’re human after all
don’t expect to bury children’s red shoes
no colour no song, don’t expect a lullaby

go on beating emptiness your wings will happen
somehow sometime

translated by Grace Wessels

let’s put a sky over there

is it possible without being the skyscrapers’ neon lights
to spill light like a flash of lightning on your path, equally
to the cat the alligator to the street to the meadow, is it possible to the human

our inside always returning to the stars who tell that fragment
isn’t it a reason to be connected and not separated this and the beyond

your skin’s darkening yellowing the shirt the whitening shirt
from magic from joy what else to humans the world’s dispersing

Nurduran Duman
Translated by Andrew Wessels

binding sparking

stones to soil salt to books
all life carriers!
come now come forward
here only one step already three times of three

inner barriers outer fences, decisions
evil an accident one’s self is pure pure as nature

every night before sleep
everyone could bury a pinch of darkness
underneath trees to water’s bottom

heartfelt hearts bind together
can’t we spark stones and set alight?

Translated by Grace Wessels

the watery side of the world

Today too is in its proper place. the gardener and the nymph
it’s strange but they gave me an old walk
i see the watery side of the world now

i am bending down and drinking laughs thrown into my palms
your face is going to love me
your hands now are more and more and more birds

the joy of looking at you is like a child running
you kiss the flower-shaped scars spilling over my forehead
each letter written down is one febrile illness

i’m opening myself to what you hear to the clouds you listen to
since when and how is this mirror inside you it’s reflecting my eyes
i dress myself as you see me

when it’s told and finished the story the edges of its eyes are wrinkling
the cloud’s face is getting old, pulling the lace curtain
the mountain is a hand, the fog is now something else something else

Translated by Andrew Wessels

ability

light collides with the flower if there’s an eye color becomes
if there’s no eye it’s just being, becoming becomes only

if there’s no ear let the leaf crunch
sound is only being, the echo waiting for the mountain

scent desires inhalation to discern/divine the name the reputation
membrane flies from membranes, the knowing of skin with skin

the human is the plus one of the world
she is the added value, individual talents
the same loving

Translated by Andrew Wessels

teapot

i mixed with the streets ripped from your roots a rose bud no longer
the road is shortened, one small bud
with my yearnings sunk i’m a tea a little bit blood red, a lesser
lover

mother come wrap my sprouting shoots, pick me up tuck me into the house
steep me on the window in your song’s vibrations, garnish with basil
sugar me, stir with your hand make the house drink me mother

i left the street i’m a frostbitten petal my sweat is tired
i took my missing feelings back i’m a little bit emptiness, a full separation
i’m a small roof a small portico, i’m a rose bud torn loose
no longer

mother come shake off my dust, tuck me like a roll in your chest
raise me again with letters and lullabies, put me to sleep three days and nights
lay me in life mother before your eyes
spread a thick inside over me

Translated by Andrew Wessels

the sky settled on the lake

the sky settled on the lake, the clouds a flying carpet
we prepare to step on the moon, its walk
and pass over the moon’s dance, its water and time

rustling hydrogen skirts float
passing by our sides by our heads. daybreak.
we spread and are spread from cinnamon to blue from diamond from bee
we’re graced with fields and gardens on the earth’s silk

we, too, are learning to cultivate: the light

Translated by Andrew Wessels

Weave of colors

caught every morning in the lover’s hair, the sunset
circulates through its strands of red, of light

because every arrow emerges from the dawn
evening is weaved from midday to joy

from sorrow to night… an opposite, a face

everyone knows sharing is sacred

if leaves and statements don’t decay, then death
is a green garden, its reward infinite

people evaporate from boiling water to the face of the sky
painting the sky blue so it rains

the person who plants the growing tree is mixed with the infinite

there are people who love rain and also those who don’t know how to love

Translated by Andrew Wessels

we have our sky

in a dream, into another dream
a door opens, closes: a star
deep cut angles stitched down lightly
by an invisible needle on the folds of sky

we have our own sky
ships made of eyes, wings of eyelashes
in meeting glances, we take flight

we’re practising forms of laughter
life’s other defiances

Translated by Aron Aji

Nurduran Duman is a Turkish poet and playwright, also known as a columnist, journalist, speaker, translator, editor, and event curator. She holds a degree in Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture from Istanbul Technical University. Her books include “Yenilgi Oyunu” (winner of the 2005 Cemal Süreya Poetry Award), “Mi Bemol”, “Exchanging Glances with Istanbul” (novella), “Semi Circle” (published in the US), “Selected Poems” (Macedonia), and “Selected Poems” (Belgium). Her forthcoming poetry collection “Poetry, I Have No Bad News for You” is in press, and her “Collected Poems” are currently being prepared for publication in China and Macedonia in 2026. Her poetry collection “Steps of Istanbul” received the “Poetry Collection of the Year” award at the Second Boao International Poetry Award (China) in 2019, and she was honored with the “Golden Camel Award” at the 2020 Silk Road International Poetry Awards. Most recently, she received the “European Poet of the Year Award” at the Dubai 5th Silk Road International Poetry and Art Festival in 2025. In 2018, she was featured in Modern Poetry in Translation (MPT)’s list of ten women poets in translation from around the world. Additionally, at the request of the Paul Valéry Museum in France, she wrote the poem “Act” regarding a work in the museum’s permanent collection, which was published in the museum’s book “Peinture et Poésie”. Her poems have been translated into many languages. Her play “Before the Fly” has been accepted into the repertoire of the State Theatres of Türkiye and has been staged by Bursa State Theatre. Duman teaches poetry, theatre, creative writing, and literary sociology at various universities and academies. She organizes and hosts the event series “Poetry Soiree with Nurduran Duman”, held every Tuesday in Istanbul for four years. She also performs in “Poetry Stage” (Şiir Sahne), an original format conceived and designed by Duman. In this production, she has been staging the dramaturgy of her forthcoming book “Poetry, I Have No Bad News for You” together with a countertenor opera singer and a soprano opera singer blending the imagistic world of poetry with the vocal power of opera and theatrical narrative to create a multi-layered live experience of sound and movement. She serves as the Türkiye Coordinator for Poets of the Planet and is a member of Versopolis and PEN Türkiye.