Poems

History-Geography

Notes

This was the first of three poems by Karin Karakaşlı that we translated in our workshop and we were all immediately enthralled by the swift, clean energy of her style, her directness and her ability to speak powerful truths using very pared down vocabulary.

Karin is Armenian and, as a result, a great deal of her work, especially her poetry, is preoccupied with the status of Armenians within Turkey and the persistent denial of the 1915 genocide that poisons her country. This poem very directly addresses those issues in a powerfully economical way.

Sarah Maguire, Workshop Facilitator