Futurism II
Nazım Hikmet’s Futuristic Poetry
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Nâzım Hikmet’s Futuristic Poetry
He was born to a semi-aristocratic family
His father was Ottoman consul at Hamburg
and worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
His grandfather was the governor of
several Ottoman vilayets (Aleppo, Salonica)
1917 – socialist revolution in Russia
1918 – finished Ottoman Naval Academy
1920 – left the Navy due to heart condition
1921 – went to Anatolia to join the National
Forces in War of Independence
Sep. 1921 – alienated as a communist,
went to Batumi and in 1922, to Moscow
Enrolled in the Communist Univ. of Eastern
Laborers, studied politics and economics
(1902 Salonica-1963 Moscow)
Met and read Mayakovsky and other Soviet
futurists closely until he returned home
in 1924 – influence lasted a decade
Nâzım Hikmet’s Futurism: “To Become a Machine (I)”
trrrrum,
trrrrum,
trrrrum!
trak tiki tak!
I want to become
a machine!
This desire comes from my brain
my flesh my skeleton!
I am dying to mount
and ride
every dynamo!
My wet tongue licks copper wires,
Electric motorcars chase locomotives
in my veins!
. /..
Nâzım Hikmet’s Futurism: “To Become a Machine (I)”
trrrrum,
trrrrum,
trrrrum!
trak tiki tak
I want to become
a machine!
I’ll surely find a way
and finally be happy on the day
when I put a turbine in my belly
and fix two propellers to my tail!
(…)
I want to become
a machine!
1923
.. / ..
“To Become a Machine (II)”
I live in a four-storey wooden house,
my room’s on the fourth floor.
Across from my window
is a twenty-storey reinforced-concrete
block of flats.
Twenty lifts work every moment
from roof to basement,
from basement to roof.
But I –
a man who wants to set an engine
in his belly
and fix a couple of screws to his tail –
every evening
climb eighty steps of a wooden stairway.
At every step my resentment increases
a hundredfold
against the tenants who go up by lift.
Paul Citroen, Metropolis (1923)
. / ..
“To Become a Machine (II)”
But I’m still optimistic.
I believed . . . (in socialism)
machines would be ours (will be)
and that I would become a machine. (will)
Only till then,
to soothe my great desire,
every morning
I launch myself from the fourth floor
down the banisters of eighty steps
vizzz . . .
I slide . . .
The old woman porter says
‘Crazy!’ to me,
not knowing that I – what an idiot!
want
to become a machine . . .
.. / ..
1923