Celebrating poets: NÂZIM HIKMET

Hi Everyone,

I’d love to take a moment today to celebrate the life and work of the great Turkish poet Nâzim Hikmet. For his artistic and political stances, Hikmet was arrested in 1938 and thrown in prison for thirteen years.

According to Pablo Neruda, a friend and supporter, Hikmet survived those brutal years by singing everything he knew, every love poem and battle hymn and peasant ballad. “And so,” Neruda said, “he vanquished the filth and his torturers.”

Here is a link to one of his most famous poems, “On Living”:

https://poets.org/poem/living

Abrazos,

Cristina