Futurism II Nazım Hikmet`s Futuristic Poetry

Futurism II

Nazım Hikmet’s Futuristic Poetry su

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)

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“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