İlhan Sami Çomak speaks to reporters outside Marmara Prison, formerly known as Silivri Prison, following his release on Nov. 26, 2024, after more than thirty years of incarceration. Photograph published by Agos.
Reading by Jeffrey Kahrs
As the sun slips into the confined sweat of my forehead,
creates the migrations of tribes inside me
and the voices of babies crying during massacres.
Like a tree, be the shade
swaying with the strong wind.
Secret letters play hide-and-seek
behind the veil of mystery
and wander wherever paradise might be.
Daily work or the morning call to prayer
is similar to a snakebite.
It was an old tale in those mountains:
the bird’s long journey to itself
lying on the thin geography of my forehead
is the birthplace of my defeat.
The shadow falls across the cave paintings.
Death wanders and returns.
Death wanders and returns.
It feels cold when it happens far away
but warm us when it happens nearby.
Running, running, restlessly running,
pouring out of the garden
as water flows, while writing or laughing,
while waiting for mothers to sing lullabies,
while breaking up with a lover
as if falling off a cliff,
painfully running.
Don’t make me cry.
Take me and run with my body,
with the avalanche and bare branches
broken with a snap,
like my voice, lost to love.
It’s time now, it’s time
to offer my incomplete meanings
to a sky filled with a familiar neglect.
As my identity bleeds in the void,
I cry a handful of tears.
In your absence, I weep.
O my country, my beloved,
I can only return to you
wherever I go.
The main entrance to Marmara Prison in Istanbul, Turkey. Photo by Thomas Koch / Shutterstock.
Reading by İlhan Sami Çomak
sana döndüğümdür
Güneş kayarken alnımın tenha ıslaklığına
Bende dolaştır kavim göçlerini
Büyük kırımları ağlayan bebe seslerini
Değdikçe sert rüzgârlar
Salın ağaçla salın gölge olup
Gizil harfler sır perdesi saklambaç
Dolaş neyin neresiyse cennet
Gündüz işleri sabah ezanı
Yılan sokması gibi . . .
Eski bir masaldı o dağlarda
Kuşun kendine uzun yolculuğu
Ve alnımın ince coğrafyasında
Doğduğum yer bir mağlubiyet saati
Uzakları uzak yakınları sıcak
Tepiyor ve geri geliyor ölüm
Tepiyor ve geri geliyor ölüm
Mağara resimlerine düşüyor gölge.
Koşmak koşmak durmadan koşmak
Bahçeye çıkıp koşmak
Sular akarken, yazarken, gülerken
Ninniye duran anneleri beklerken
Yardan koparken acı acı koşmak
Ağlatmayın beni alın
Alın ve koşun gövdemi
Çığ ve çıplak kuru dal çıtırtısıyla
Sevdaya kaybolan sesim gibi.
Vakit geldi vakit geldi şimdi
Eksik anlamlar yüklüyorum yalnızlığa
Gökyüzü bildik bir umursamazlık
Ve boşlukta kanıyor kimliğim
Sensizliğe ağlıyorum avuç avuç
Sensizliğe ağlıyorum ey ülkem ey sevgilim
Ben sadece nereye gitsem sana döndüğümdür.
After completing his primary and secondary schooling in his hometown of Karlıova, İlhan Sami Çomak (Bingöl 1973) enrolled in the Department of Geography at Istanbul University’s Faculty of Literature in 1992. Just two years later, his life was irrevocably altered when he was arrested and incarcerated. He remained behind bars until November 2024.
Writing in both Turkish and his native Kurdish, he has created a body of poetry remarkable for its richness, resilience, and humanity. His work, born in confinement, has reached far beyond prison walls, inspiring readers, artists, and filmmakers alike. Several documentaries have been devoted to his life and poetry, testifying to the force of his artistic and personal vision.Çomak is the author of numerous books in Turkish, as well as the Kurdish-language volume Çîyayê Girî. His poetry has also been translated into several languages. A selection of his poetry appeared in Separated from the Sun (Smokestack Books, UK, 2022), followed by the Norwegian edition The Rivers Flow Out of the Maps (Gyldendal, 2024).
Çomak’s literary achievements have been recognized with numerous honors, including the 2019 Sennur Sezer Emek-Direniş Poetry and Story Award and the 2022 Metin Altıok Poetry Prize for We’re Alive at Last. In 2022, he also received the Freedom of Expression Award and the People’s Special Award from the Norwegian Ministry of Culture and the Norwegian Writers’ Union. In 2025, he was named the recipient of the prestigious Jack Hirschman Poetry Prize. Çomak is currently based in Istanbul.
Jeffrey Kahrs is the author of The Far Shore ,a bilingual collection of poems in Turkish and English, as well as a chapbook published by Gold Wake Press. He received the Nazim Hikmet Poetry Prize in 2012, co-edited a special issue of the Atlanta Review devoted to poetry in Turkey, and edited a section of the Turkish translation magazine Translator’s Notes, featuring English-language poets living in Istanbul. His poems have appeared in Talisman,Sky Island Journal, What Rough Beast, Subtropics and other publications. He has also published fiction and non-fiction. Together with Mete Özel, he has translated numerous poems for journals including Circumference and Consequence. Their translations published in theFortnightly Review were nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2025. Kahrs lived in Istanbul for eighteen years.
Mete Özel’s latest poetry collection, Hope, illustrated by Belkis Taşkesker, was published in May. His debut, Mirage Dream Mystery, came out in 2008. Since 2014, he has worked as a researcher and storyteller focusing on aspects of Anatolian oral traditions. His work has appeared in prominent Turkish literary journals, including Varlık, Yasakmeyve, and Virüs. Özel is an accomplished critic who has published essays on Elitis, Pavese, Cavalcanti, and Goethe. Among the poets he has translated are Carlos Felipe Moisés, Artem Harutyunyan, Ligia Keşişian, Rutger Kopland, Michele Zaffarano, Miron Białoszewski, Yip Fai, Yelena Shvarts, Donnie Smith, and Elena Liliana Popescu. He is a founding partner of Mirora, an international translation company, and is based in Istanbul.
