The Turkish Cypriot Artists and Writers Union speaks up in the name of the World Poetry Movement

By Heidi Trautmann

What can poets do, what can world poetry do en face war events that are alight right now in our vicinity?

The World stands up and says Enough is Enough, we cannot carry out conflicts on the back of innocents, on the back of children. It is not a religious war, it is a war for territory as it has always been in the area at the end of the Mediterranean, and the solution finding is in the hands of ruthless fanatics who sit back in their chairs and dictate the fighters to go out and kill, to walk over corpses until the end. It is a war of shame.

Words should be the weapons but these people in the war scenes are speechless, they are cowards, they are without any tolerance and respect for the others. They have no heart and no tongue to speak up.

On Friday, July 25, the Turkish Cypriot Artists and Writers Union have organised for their members and guests to meet and express their empathy and share their sadness by reciting their poems. Poems are to become flying messages to reach far and perhaps the one or other will help to quench a fire. The venue for the meeting was at the newly renovated Arabahmet Cultural Centre, an old Armenian building with its character completely left untouched. We sat on the balcony on the first floor and the evening came to bring darkness and a cool breeze. The bells of the Armenian church around the corner stroke nine thirty when Ümit Incatçı welcomed the guests. Thirty five artists and poets had come, among them the grey eminence of the theatre, Yaşar Ersoy, the legendary figure of Mustafa Gökçeoğlu;  one poet I have not seen for a long time was Feriha Altiok, and all my other friends and people I have interviewed for my new book, Volume II of Art and Creativity in North Cyprus.

Mustafa Gökçeoğlu opened the evening…Feriha Altiok was next and she had chosen a long poem, perhaps for the reason that she hadn’t been in public for so long. They all spoke up.

It was a lovely Nicosian summer night, a breeze cooled the heated discussions that followed the recitals: war on the back of children and the chances for peace. Arabahmet is an Armenian quarter, once they lived here all together. No traffic sounds here…a dog barking….the Imam called at sharp nine… and the bells of the church followed, every 15 minutes…with the Christian bells one is always aware where we stand in time or…. what the writing on the wall is?