Last week there was an exhibition about poetry in Istanbul. Strange, isn't it? We usually expect exhibitions to include visual art disciplines such as painting, sculpture and photography. This exhibition was about the intersection of experimental poetry and visual arts. It was a modest interdisciplinary exhibition of artworks by some visual artists interpreting the poetry and art of the three experimental poets who organized the exhibition.
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On the opening day of the exhibition, three poets took turns to read their poems. The effect of their musician friend, who accompanied the poetry performances live on guitar, on the performance was very nice and impressive. This was followed by a one-hour question and answer session. The poets answered questions about both the works in the exhibition and their own poetry-making processes. I am usually a person who gets bored with events like forums/interviews, but I listened to this interview with excitement and attention, it was interesting.
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Let's take a brief look at these poets.
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Ekin Metin Sozüpek was born in 1989 in Istanbul. He attended several universities to study sociology and theater and he has a master's degree in cinema. He had a book of poems published. He writes concrete, graphic, and experimental poetry. He is a poet who uses a variety of musical and dramatic effects to perform his poems and also produces experimental hiphop songs.
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Emre Varışlı is a poet born in Istanbul in 1985. He has published fanzines and realized performances since 2000s. He has five books published so far. He is also a photographer.
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Suhan Sürmeli, born in Ankara in 1999, studied cinema. She has a poetry book and has been writing poems in fanzines since 2016. In addition to her poetry performances, her documentary/video works on poetry are also admirable.
I wanted to translate some of these poets' poems and present them to you, but it was harder than I expected and I failed :) I think translating experimental/avant-garde poems is really a difficult thing that only a few people in the world can do, while translating poetry requires attention and expertise. However, if you search for the poets' names on Google, you can find Turkish publications of their poems.
I shot all the photos with the Sony A7SIII camera, using the Samyang 24mm and Sony FE 50mm lenses. I edited them with Adobe Lightroom and added the exposure values below the photos.
All the best 🍀
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