By
Heidi Trautmann
A
summer evening, a bookstore at night, some poetry lovers sitting comfortably in
a circle in the small fore garden…. we have come to meet poet Tamer Öncül. Opportunity
to ask a poet for his reasons, his philosophy, his experience; why do you write
poems and when have you started, where does your inspiration come from, etc.
etc. Zeki Ali, another poet, and known for his music programmes on BRT, was also
present.
It
became an animated exchange of ideas between the poet and the guests after he
had started to recount of his career as poet and writer. I had the opportunity
to conduct an interview with Tamer Öncül some time ago which is included in
Volume II of my book ‘Art and Creativity in North Cyprus’ soon to be published.
Tamer is a modern and critical mind and I would like to introduce him to my
readers because it is through the artistic and creative people that we learn
most about the country we live in. If
you want to find TC poetry in other languages, ask Ayça from the bookstore,
there is also my book ‘North Cyprus My Way’ containing some poetry of local
poets in English and German.
Here
are some passages of text from my interview:
Tamer
ÖNCÜL, Poet, Dentist and Columnist, born in Nicosia in 1960
Poetry
versus today’s humanity
“What is the meaning of humanity today? Are
these two-legged living creatures on our globe still human in the sense we used
to know? The classic definition in our
dictionaries of ‘human’ is: having or showing the best qualities of mankind
which are kindness, tenderness, compassion, consideration, civilization,
refinement etc. This definition is dead, it has been replaced by ‘barbaric’, we
have returned to the level of barbarians, living beings who are only interested
in satisfying their basic needs and their insatiable greed. These beings don’t stop at destroying their
own trees and cultural assets.”
Tamer Öncül expresses his disgust about the
developments in his country - but also in the whole world. Ideals such as
pride, honour, truth, love of country have vanished, have been trampled on
during recent years. These values have been sold out for something more
treacherous. This is Cyprus for him today. He tells me this in his dentist’s
office in Nicosia, an office where next to the clinical equipment for the care
of dental patients are shelves full of books - not only scientific books but
volumes of poetry and literature. The
walls are decorated with pictures by his artist friends, a place where one can
feel at ease. Tamer Öncül is a handsome man with relaxed composure, not at all
as his poems would make us believe, but rather like the doctor his patients
trust in. A bit confusing; how do these two roles work together, I ask him.
“To concern myself with the various pains
of patients demands the same kind of psychological approach as poetry.” Tamer
explains, “One does not exclude the other, rather the two support each other.
Studying dentistry was a chance decision; the alternative would have been
archaeology, but I followed my brother’s advice – he studied medicine himself –
to go for dentistry. And the most
important thing about it is that it leaves my head and my heart free for
literature and poetry.”
Tamer Öncül was born into the years of
trouble and the places of his childhood were all in the area between Kermia and
Gönyeli, especially the house of his grandfather who more than once had to take
the family in, in times of crisis. “On the one hand, I grew up with the
mysterious stories and legends my grandfather told us during the hours of the
dying day and on the other, I grew up with the noise of guns, to see soldiers
come and go, to see and hear people die, to see and smell blood, and we could
feel the hate and mistrust like solid walls.”
Our
Wall
To Niyazi and Panikos
Look! I am just in the middle
Ugly, protruding vertebras
Of your humpback…
Your rusty, breakable bones
Are crackling
Under my feet
You, I
And terrible searchlights
Are illuminating
The desolation’s lie.
Look! I am alone on your back…
The people, your creators,
Stayed behind and in front of me…
They
all together gaze at their pains
Inflicted
by each other…-
Eyes blushed from shame
Follow my haughty shadow I feel…
They look through bullet holes:
Frightened and offensive.
Look I am just in the middle.
The one, whose steel muscles shiver,
And thorny black hair
Piercing your bloody flesh of your back…
I heard your story
From a young man
Watering his roses
By passport.
Look !We are alone…
Confess it all and tell me…
Say, who nourishes you?
Say, how many flags you serve,
How many people’s vampire?
July
1997, Ledra Palace
…………..
Foreword:
You ask me
Why do I write
So much war poetry?
To make you disgusted
With war….
“In
1984 I graduated and got married to my Cypriot wife who studied eye medicine in
Istanbul. We both stayed on in Istanbul working in our respective professions,
until 1989. But
homesickness compelled us to return to
Cyprus. My first poetry book was published in Istanbul in 1987. Besides
organizing our private life back in Cyprus, during the first two years we found
jobs in Kyrenia. Then I started to write
for the newspaper Yeni Düzen as a
cultural columnist covering cultural developments and events in North Cyprus,
and, as time went by, as a book critic…”….A nasty job, is it not, I asked?
“Yes, you can easily hurt people’s feelings
and then they don’t speak to you any more.
Yet it is the work I criticize
and not the person. You know we have too many so-called artists, hobby poets
who throw poetry at the market. But if we appraise poetry according to its
quality, we have no more than 20 poets and short story writers of international
standard.”
I tell Tamer that I know that he is a board
member and Coordinator of the North Cypriot Artists and Writers Union …
“As a union we are able to coordinate our
forces much more effectively to make our Cypriot poetry known
internationally. Through our cooperation
with other foreign unions we get our books or perhaps only parts of them
translated into other languages, such as English, French, German, Italian,
Greek, Macedonian, Azerbeijani, Arabic, Lithuanian, etc. ……….
There is a wave of melancholy and hopelessness
going through the verses, conveyed by images of decay, the colour of blood,
black nights of dreams, a heavy sadness. There are surrealist images also, and
hardly any twinkling stars to soften the view, no sun to warm the heart, no
blooming flowers giving off sweet scents. Why are they so uncompromisingly
sad? Will the shadow of your people’s
unhappiness lie over your verses forever?
Could you not allow yourself to experience a drop of happiness once in a
while?
“Yes, I am subject to melancholy, hopelessness,
thoughts of blood, death and gloom…but this should not lead to the conclusion
that I write ‘dark poems” which propagate hopelessness. But to trade empty
hopes with fool’s poetry would mean ignoring the dark barbaric age we live in. Instead I choose to illuminate the existing
reality in all its nakedness and where we are now is our final stand! It is my duty to point out that we can either
choose to return to our humanity or we perish.
…………..
“As
I stressed before, not just Cyprus and Cypriots but the whole of humanity has lost
its values. In this “barbaric age” wrongly called the “age of communication”
instead of the “cyber age” where greedy consumerism is encouraged rather than production,
we should try to return to “human values”...I know that writing poetry and
publishing books is not enough to change the situation... you are saying “we
need to find a new key”...a single key is not enough to open up the doors of
this confusing labyrinth...we need a lot of keys and a lot of people (from all
fields)... everyone should contribute their part...an artist’s key is his/her
art. For those outside the realms of art
and poetry there should be other keys supplied by “civil organisations” and
“alternative living” to fight in all areas of life... “
Yes, Tamer Öncül is right. Our times carry
in them the seed of an epidemic and it reaches all the niches of our world. We
can only hope that his words and those of his colleagues reach sensitive ears.
Publications:
1987 - Günleri Kayıp Bir Çocuk
Güncesi (İstanbul; Kendi Yayınım); 82 Sayfa
1992 - Şiirdir Dünya (Lefkoşa;
Kendi Yayınım); 52 Sayfa
1996 - I Hora -ŞŞ eher (,Lefkoşa;
Pygmalion Yayınları); 80 Sayfa
1996 - Yitik Aşklar Sokağı
(Lefkoşa; Pygmalion Yayınları) 58 sayfa
1998 - Gündüz Düşleri
(İstanbul; Hera Yayınları); 80 Sayfa
2003 - Kuru Pınar Yazıtları
(Lefkoşa; Pygmalion Yayınları); 90 Sayfa
2008 - Düşler (İstanbul; K.T.
Sanatçı Ve Yazarlar Birliği Yayınları); 96 Sayfa
***
Kıbrıs Türk Yüksek Öğrenim
Gençliği Hareketleri (Araştırma-Derleme. Lefkoşa, 1999. Öntaç Düzgün’le
birlikte. Naci Talat Vakfı Yayınları); 360 Sayfa
Referandum /Yeni Sözlük /Köşe
Yazıları,( Lefkoşa 2006; Kendi Yayınım); 308 Sayfa
Toyki - … Derleme. Lefkoşa
2003 Eylül; Vakıf Yayını); 68 Sayfa