Futurism II Nazım Hikmet’s Futuristic Poetry su

Nâzım Hikmet’s Futuristic Poetry (1902 Salonica-1963 Moscow) He was born to a semi-aristocratic family His father was Ottoman consul at Hamburg and worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs His grandfather was the governor of several Ottoman vilayets (Aleppo, Salonica) 1917 – socialist revolution in Russia 1918 – finished Ottoman Naval Academy 1920 – left the Navy due to heart condition 1921 – went to Anatolia to join the National Forces in War of Independence Sep – alienated as a communist, went to Batumi and in 1922, to Moscow Enrolled in the Communist Univ. of Eastern Laborers, studied politics and economics Met and read Mayakovsky and other Soviet futurists closely until he returned home in 1924 – influence lasted a decade

Nâzım Hikmet’s Futurism: “To Become a Machine (I)” trrrrum, trrrrum! trak tiki tak! I want to become a machine! This desire comes from my brain my flesh my skeleton! I am dying to mount and ride every dynamo! My wet tongue licks copper wires, Electric motorcars chase locomotives in my veins!. /..

Nâzım Hikmet’s Futurism: “To Become a Machine (I)” trrrrum, trrrrum! trak tiki tak I want to become a machine! I’ll surely find a way and finally be happy on the day when I put a turbine in my belly and fix two propellers to my tail! (…) I want to become a machine! /..

Paul Citroen, Metropolis (1923) “To Become a Machine (II)” I live in a four-storey wooden house, my room’s on the fourth floor. Across from my window is a twenty-storey reinforced-concrete block of flats. Twenty lifts work every moment from roof to basement, from basement to roof. But I – a man who wants to set an engine in his belly and fix a couple of screws to his tail – every evening climb eighty steps of a wooden stairway. At every step my resentment increases a hundredfold against the tenants who go up by lift.. /..

“To Become a Machine (II)” But I’m still optimistic. I believed... (in socialism) machines would be ours (will be) and that I would become a machine. (will) Only till then, to soothe my great desire, every morning I launch myself from the fourth floor down the banisters of eighty steps vizzz... I slide... The old woman porter says ‘Crazy!’ to me, not knowing that I – what an idiot! want to become a machine..... /