Those who knew Cahit Sıtkı would surely remember his eyes. His small, dark, freckled face came to life with those eyes, which seemed to live, speak, listen, and in certain moments, gain a strange, sweet, deeply touching, almost feminine beauty, or rather, a kind of angelic beauty. Through those eyes, Cahit would come to you, settle inside you like something of your own, becoming a part of you, even somewhat tormenting. Because although Cahit rarely argued, got angry, or scolded, sometimes those eyes would flash with guilt over sins you were unaware of.
What was it that he couldn't forgive in himself and his surroundings? I'm so regretful now that I didn't ask him. Perhaps it was because he sensed his fate. What could be sadder than a poet, who spoke Turkish so beautifully, being unable to express even the simplest things for months and years, living with wounded gazelle-like eyes for years without remembering the name of the object whose shadow and color he had cast into time with every opening of his mouth? When I heard that they had started teaching him Turkish again, word by word, how my heart ached. Fate couldn't have mocked a human more cruelly.
I met Cahit during the days when his first poetry book was published. One evening when I went to Degüstasyon, I saw a frail but charming young man at the table we always sat at. Peyami Safa introduced us. He seemed out of place, huddled up, or rather withdrawn into himself, as he spoke with us. He had graduated from Galatasaray. For his age, he had read extensively. Like the French, he knew us very well too. Nevertheless, I thought, is this the person who wrote those poems that surprised me so much?
Then suddenly, something was said, and Cahit laughed like all of us. His small, palm-sized face lit up. How can one describe the sweetness of that laugh? Suddenly, I understood that those poems, with their twilight and depth, could only have been written by someone who could laugh in this way, look at people with those eyes, and know how to be so pure. Cahit was one of those people whose nature no sin could stain. That's why he lived like a fallen angel, out of place, and died by burning his unseen wings.
That night I also saw that Cahit turned to alcohol in a way very different from us, as if it were a kind of need. It was as if he was quenching someone else's thirst within him. He had a peculiar and drop-by-drop manner of speaking, awkward but pleasant hand gestures, and a broken, hard-to-place laugh.
After that night, we met frequently. Very few people had as much need for friendship as he did. Even the simplest tasks were issues for him. His entry into the School of Political Sciences and his years of study always turned into problems somewhat exacerbated by his own temperament. His increasingly solid reputation, the influence of his large family circle, his charm and docility, or his indifference to the outside world when he didn’t make things a problem, opened many doors for him on their own. However, his bohemian nature, the anger and outbursts he hid from us, and his need to live as he wished would close these doors one by one without him realizing it. It can be said that Cahit spent a large part of his life in front of the doors he himself had closed.
Nevertheless, he was attached to life. He had ambitions that he did not try to hide and even wanted those around him to know and take into account. He followed the reflection of his works seriously and did not like leaving his reputation to chance. In the weeks following the publication of his first book, he had personally met almost the entire literary world. No other writer of ours sent his books and words to friends and the literary world with such carefully chosen dedications as Cahit Sıtkı. The letters he wrote to the late Ziya Osman show how well-suited he was to great friendships and how seriously he took literature.
At one point, I insisted a lot that he find a way to go to Europe. Each time, he would explain to me at length why this couldn't happen. Many difficulties in his life probably stemmed from his rooted family environment's inability to fully accept the poet and his lifestyle.
A poet is always a misunderstanding.
Strangely, although we met frequently while he was in Istanbul, now I can only recall a heap of snapshots of him in my memory. I can say that Cahit comes to me only with his face scattered over time. I remember one evening when we crossed from Eminönü to Galata arm in arm. At the very beginning of the Bridge, I talked to him about the technique of stanzas in poetry, or rather the almost plastic rotation of the stanza on the joint of the rhyme. Then, for a moment, we looked at the sea from the Bridge. Cahit read me a new poem. But I can't remember where we spent the evening and night. Did we part ways as soon as we reached Beyoğlu, or did we go to Degüstasyon or Tokatlı, where Baylan is now, as we often did?
In the years before the Second War, Degüstasyon had almost become the gathering place for all our literati. Yahya Kemal, Professor Münir Bey, Ağaoğlu Ahmed, Mustafa Şekip Tunç, Arif Dino (how death has ravaged my surroundings), Abidin Dino, Peyami Safa, Hilmi Ziya, Çallı, we often gathered here. Yahya Kemal would also come here from time to time.
I vividly remember one night when Yahya Kemal, Cahit Sıtkı, and Arif Dino were together at a table. Yahya Kemal really liked Cahit’s poem "The Death of a Poet."
All gardens are locked,
The key is with God.
These lines contained all the good aspects of our folk poetry. And moreover, in every sense, they kept the voice of this poem alive for a long time. At that time, Arif Dino had dedicated himself to those beautiful drawings made with pens from horsehair. Unfortunately, he did not continue. As soon as he arrived at the café, he would always place his ink pot and brushes on the table. He would push his glasses up over his eyebrows and start explaining a complex aesthetic theory, mixing surrealism with esoteric theories, and touching on alchemy.
However, Arif’s thought process resembled a strange architect building castles in the clouds. He could never come to clarity. Even the things he knew best and wanted to explain the most were sufficient for him to see with his inner eyes. Faced with Yahya Kemal’s questions, which demanded very clear answers, it happened the same way again. The answers became increasingly vague. That night, Arif taught us how to drink vodka with red pepper. I saw Cahit trying this sharp method several times.
At Tokatlı, we would mostly gather around Yahya Kemal. In this restaurant, there was a very charming maître d’hôtel named David Efendi who was genuinely an admirer of the poet Ses. Unfortunately, this admiration often had very awkward consequences. As soon as he saw Yahya Kemal, he would become overly zealous and commit blunders repeatedly. For this, he was often scolded but then received very generous tips.
At Tokatlı, both David Efendi and the other waiters would not only serve us but also, whenever they had the chance, gather around our table under the pretense of service and listen to Yahya Kemal. One night, when the shutters had been lowered, Yahya Kemal, in parting, said to the waiters and David Efendi, “If you haven’t become scholars by now, let’s give up on this!” David never forgot this remark. A few months before his death, he lamented to me with a smile at the Republic Café, which he then managed, “We never managed to become scholars...” Sadly, there are almost no cafés left in Istanbul or Beyoğlu where literary figures gather.
Several meetings of the magazine "Kültür Haftası," published by İlhami Safa, whose early death we so lamented, were held at Tokatlı. Around that time, we continued our meetings at a place somewhere between a bar and a club on the first floor of a building, the name of which I now forget. I also remember very well that Cahit liked a young, beautiful woman with a scar on her face whom we often encountered at this bar. This woman had a warm dark complexion and large black eyes, reminiscent of Baudelaire’s "Black Venus," and a strange, passionate voice.
In "Kültür Haftası," Cahit translated Thomas Mann’s "Death in Venice," partly at my insistence. I’m not sure if I gave him the French edition of the book, but I feel like I did. Or I might have been upset because I couldn’t find it. In any case, a day or two after obtaining the book, I ran into him on Ankara Street. He had one of those sweet smiles on his face. He liked the novel. I believe this translation was left incomplete. Yahya Kemal’s formula, which was a subject of much debate in our literature for a long time, (From School to Homeland), is from a speech he gave in "Kültür Haftası."
Cahit Sıtkı often attended all these meetings. He would sit silently, participating in the conversation with a few words as if overcoming great hesitations. This silence had become his main trait for me. Yet, I heard that he was very noisy and merry, especially in his bouts of extreme drunkenness. Nevertheless, Cahit Sıtkı had a buried side within him. What he truly brought to our poetry was this side. His work is imbued with an atmosphere of complete intimacy in Turkish. Provided that Cahit managed to expand this "intimisme" towards all of humanity.
Towards the beginning of World War II, the European journey he so desired finally materialized, and Cahit stayed in Paris, where Baudelaire, whom he greatly admired and knew well, and especially Verlaine lived, for about a year and a half. After his return, the Ankara period began.
After his return, I could hardly see Cahit. He had found new friends in Ankara and gathered around himself a circle of poets. Despite knowing the restaurant where they gathered every night, we couldn't meet. He only visited my home once for some reason. Although I went to meeting places near Ulus printing house twice, I couldn't find him. Our encounters mostly occurred on the road or at friends' houses.
Our last long conversation took place at Sabahattin Eyüboğlu's house. It was one of those nights filled with constant arguments stemming from every turn. Cahit hardly participated in the argument. He sat with me all night on the couch, leafing through the Pleiade edition of Verlaine. At one point, he read us a few poems. While reading, his voice trembled, and due to the influence of alcohol, he hiccupped now and then. I don't know if he had drunk a lot that night, but it was clear he drank regularly, making alcohol his climate. Occasionally, he would pause and repeat the lines he liked. In those moments, his face, resembling a small brass lamp, would light up sincerely. Because Cahit was one of those who found happiness only when in contact with poetry. Sometimes he would jokingly ask me, "Well, master?"
A lot of disagreement had crept between us regarding poetry discussions, and perhaps he never forgave my inclination towards pure poetry, especially my prose writing. This genuine poet knew no means of expression other than poetry. Yet he had such beautiful and enjoyable prose.
Cahit always loved Verlaine. He discovered him later, influenced more by his early native influences—especially Haşim. Apart from the folk poetry atmosphere, the most enduring influence on him undoubtedly came from the poet of "Sagesse". Despite the changes in poetic technique, he always remained loyal to him. This love must have been due in part to temperament and life. Like the great French poet, he sought poetry directly in his life. However, what he received from life he presented with less refinement, less alteration. One of the memories from that night that stayed with me was of Orhan Veli standing by the gramophone, listening attentively each time Cahit half-rose from the couch as if hearing "Petruchka" anew.
Cahit Sıtkı and Orhan Veli... These two poets, whom I knew at a very young age, departed from our lives like shooting stars in an unexpected era. Yet their works remain among us like a season. I can never forget the day I saw Orhan, my student in the first grade of middle school, at Cerrahpaşa Hospital under the oxygen tent for the last time, barely breathing, his beautiful dreams escaping from his eyes that seemed to only reflect our world. The intelligence that brought sweetness and disagreement to our poetry was no longer before my eyes.
Cahit and Orhan's poetry is very different from each other. Yet their actions and desires were somewhat similar. Both sought the new—how necessary this is for poetry, I wonder. Both wanted a kind of populism. Only Cahit was more deeply attached to traditions. Orhan, who could use meter and rhyme so well whenever he wanted, desired a more radical change. In addition, Orhan's perspective included a kind of synthesis that extended to the grander picture, a deeper connection with the external world.
My last chance meeting with Cahit was in Ayazpaşa. We kissed on the fly. He was speaking with difficulty. Perhaps he felt this difficulty; his eyes wept a little. Shortly after, news of his illness arrived. Cahit's poetry expands from death towards life. Perhaps his sentimental nature or other reasons led him to that atavistic emotion, that great and fundamental fear, which he explored even in the earliest periods when he tried to merge human states of mind with cosmic drama:
Night is not a cause,
but perhaps a consequence
this can be sensed. In his later poems:
We died,
Hoping for something from death,
the poet says, bird, leaf, flower, seasons, all delights, love of humans and loyalty of friends, love of women, his own loneliness—difficult to explain, the poet's loneliness—his surroundings, his table, window, everything, all of it was transparent with the intensity of a passionate love that he had previously won over, from the other side of a curtain that he had mastered so well. In some of his poems, the sharp air that envelops people, making his world like a bird's nest, denying his substance, comes from his way of speaking.
This process was so essential in Cahit that even in his most direct poems, things often become their own shadows. It can be said that Cahit won through his condescensions thanks to this process. Indeed, from the sentimentality that was fundamental to him, he occasionally produced great and definite melodies, emotions very close to a scream, and sometimes real screams.
Sick Cahit lived for a while in this remoteness, the climate of his poems, like a shadow of himself, and passed to death, which he made the twin brother of life, so beautifully for us to taste. Surely he suffered a lot. But this certainly consoles his friends to some extent. Here, too, he achieved what he wanted. That is, he remained faithful to his poetry even in his death. He lived how poetry ordered.
Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar
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