ABSTRACT
With the exception of Nazim Hikmet, whose work has been translated widely, no Turkish poets have caught the attention of world literature lovers. This is why the British translator George Messo's recent extensive translations of contemporary Turkish poetry should perk our curiosity. Not only are Keskin's cognitive leaps typical but also her use of elements from the natural world as correlatives for thoughts and feelings. Sometimes imagery involving landscapes stands for emotions; just as often, however, the landscape is the poet. The symbolism is elementary, but its personal analogies or, indeed, Baudelairean "correspondences" are palpable. Here as elsewhere, the reader is rarely made aware of the details of these correspondences, yet through emblematic landscapes or natural things, such as the mountains, marshes, and mist in the above example, the narrator asserts her place in the world, her being in the world, and more intimate feelings as well, such as sorrow or loneliness.
