Memories of freedom, love and companionship fill the poems of İlhan Çomak, who was arrested at the age of 22
The good news is that last year the Turkish poet İlhan Çomak won a major award, the Sennur Sezer poetry prize, for his eighth and most recent book of poems, Geldim Sana (I Came to You). The bad news is that he is in prison and has been in prison for 26 years, since his arrest as a geography student at the age of 22. All his books have been written in prison.
How did he come to be there? One factor, most likely the main factor, is that he is Kurdish. That is not a crime in itself, but belonging to, or even associating with a Kurdish political organisation is. There is also the specific matter of starting a forest fire, but no serious evidence has ever been brought to prove that. The only “proof” was his confession under torture and this has been highlighted in any appeals to free him.
I am between the moon and the tide.
Between the whisper and the scream.
As a child I still had the script of a child, I was hostage to my mother’s pomegranate smile.
When I looked from the window to the full light of the garden
Watching the philosophy of hands plucking the fruit tree,
In those times when we still heard the sounds of frogs,
When women passed through my life, the lake was blue
And I knew the value of blue. I understand pain too, on the steps of life.
Related: Free Kurdish poet Ilhan Sami Çomak | Letter
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