yahya kemal reading notes 4

How much I've dealt with Yahya Kemal! In my article “Orhon Anıtları” which I wrote at the age of 23, then in 2008, Koro and in Poetikam especially. (These three are also Canım Vatan Dünya is in the volume titled.

In these recent readings of mine, I'm about to clarify what I like and dislike about him. I guess, in short, I like Yahya Kemal when he closes his eyes (and visual imagination) and opens his ears.

But let me elaborate a bit.

I think Yahya Kemal's contribution to our language and consequently to our poetry is tremendous. He perfectly solves a difficult “technical” problem like how our “classical” (“own”, “essence”) taste can be reconciled with a new and simple Turkish. Almost every one of his poems is an example of how an old identity can be revived in a new language. Even when he falls into artificiality or intentional awkwardness, he somehow maintains his charm and dignity. He takes Nedim’s (and even older poets’) style and leaves out the provincialism of 19th-century Divan poetry.

But these do not change the fact that the identity is an “old” identity. Indeed, the elements of this identity (its horsemen, ladies, composers…) appear either as a dream, a vision, a wind, or a spirit: impression, intimation, notion, association, style... In my opinion, he has surpassed Akif and Fikret in terms of linguistic technique, but he is behind both of them in his inability to embrace PROCESSES (his “Safahat”) and REALITY. He cannot say 'I', he must say 'we'; he invests his existence in belonging, but his belonging has no record in existence. In Yahya Kemal, there is only a MOMENT because the old identity can only be revived for A MOMENT. Indeed, his poems, for this reason, shine for a certain moment in a certain place and then vanish, and he considers this his glory. Indeed, the fact that Yahya Kemal's poems could take decades to write stems from their timeless nature.

However, this entire content area creates RESENTMENT and feeds on resentment.

I wouldn't want to say this, but I can't help but see a resentment at the very core of Yahya Kemal's emotional and intellectual disposition. A resentment characteristic of “right-wingers” or conservatives. Even contents that are not resentment (pride, joy, peace) are resentment-driven, premises that logically lead to a resentful outcome. What exists (i.e., roughly “Üsküdar”) only shines in the light of what does not exist. He dreams of Mohaç but cannot forget that he is in Paris or Pera Palas. He dreams of complexes (of buildings) but lives out of a suitcase. That’s why his roar of “look what we have!” against the other (often “the West”) quickly turns into the question “Ah, they have it, why don't we?” Even while roaring, it harbors the kernel of hesitation. That’s why he doesn't even roar.

Did he gather his courage?

Perhaps he finds the old mother he is chasing in Atik-Valde. In Skopje. Oops, no, not Skopje. In Üsküdar.