Poet and writer (b. 17 May 1947, İstanbul). She attended secondary school in İstanbul. She attended İstanbul University, Faculty of Literature, Department of English Language and Literature for a while and graduated from the Department of Philosophy at the same faculty (1974). After she had had worked as a teacher for two years, she worked in the culture and art department of a newspaper.
Her first poem was published in Yazko Edebiyat in 1980. Her poems have featured in the reviews Sanat Olayı, Varlık, etc. Her work Dolunay (Full Moon) was made into a movie by Şahin Kaygun. The film collected awards at many Turkish and international film festivals. She helped in the preparation and publication of the diaries of Nilgün Marmara after her death in the book Kırmızı Kahverengi Defter, (Red Brown Notebook). She established the Poetry Space Laboratory with Tarık Günersel in 1996. Soon after, she announced 21 April as “World Poetry Day” and prepared celebration events with Tarık Günersel and Gülseli İnal. They organized a program in which poems in every language were read. Later on, they took the “World Poetry Day” proposal to the Association of Turkish PEN Writers. When the Turkish PEN Association of Writers accepted this proposal, they took this project to the International PEN Center. The proposal was accepted and put on the agenda of UNESCO and was accepted all around the world and the date 21 March was officially agreed upon. She has attended numerous poetry meetings in Turkey and abroad. In August 2004 she represented Turkey at the Malaysia Kuala Lumpur World Poetry Reading Festival and read her poems. Her poem Yapayalnızsındır (All Alone) from her book, Sulara Gömülü Çağrı (Invitation Sunk in Water) was set to music by the composer Selman Adalı. In Tel Aviv, Israel in 2005 this ballad received its world premier and was performed by the Tel Aviv Orchestra under the title of “Fraternity of the Three Religions”.
WORKS:
SHORT STORY: Gelincik Sürgünde (The Weasel is in Exile, 1981).
POETRY: Sulara Gömülü Çağrı (Invitation Sunk in Water, drawings by Burhan Uygur, 1985), Lale Sesiydiler ve Yoktular (They Were In the Sound of Tulips and Absent, 1987), Dolunay (Full Moon, 1988), Letoon (Letoon, 1989), Dans Natura (Dance Natura, 1990), Bakkaris (Bakkaris, 1991), Sif ve Gula (Sif and Gula, 1992), Saklanmış Levha-Korku Metinleri (The Hidden Inscription– Text of Fear, 1995), Chöd Raksları (Chöd Dances, with illustrations by Utku Varlık, 1998), Kayıp Bağlantı (The Lost Connection, 2000), Melek Kolonisi (The Angel Colony, 2004).
NOVEL: Dolunay (Full Moon, 1988, adapted to cinema).
