The Fikret Demirag Prize were awarded to Senem Gökel and Maria Siakalli. The award ceremony will take place and the Europe House in 30 Byron Avenue Nicosia South on 15 November 2012 at 18.15.

Senem Gökel, I have heard her many times recite at Poetry Events. Her poetry has been published in literature magazines, some translated into English.

Here is an….Excerpt from

BALCONY

As if hanging, dropped from the sky

settled in the middle of time

here’s his balcony;

huge, desolate.

His ankles, leaning on its iron railings, in the air.

Face to face:

His face and a featureless view

His back is an arc impossible to pass—

unseen.

He doesn’t see

As he’s busy sulking over and over in the thoughts.

He’s repeating himself

His judgements, he reaches time and again

“OK.” he thinks

“This is this. Always was anyway.”—

My mother peels an apple, proper ladylike

Her ladylike feet in front of her chair.

To be strong, father.

A fruit peeled properly.

In the middle of your contemplation

a shadowy speck

that you now find like a piece of cake—

covered under a blanket

and you know it’s just absent  sometimes;

over and over resembling a body open for infection,

resembling a rag—dropped from this balcony near the trail of ants.

Something you can’t teach

neither me

nor me

can’t teach me father.