Finally, in Book of the Edge, the Sufi path laid out for us converges with the pathways of another tradition. In many ways, Temelkuran’s work returns to a time that predates the Sufis, predates Christianity and even monotheism: hers is a shamanistic journey. As in shamanism, the animals in these poems guide the explorer from place to place, communicating with her directly, even touching her, and they teach her all she needs to learn. A swordfish cuts her with its sword, inserts silver into her spine, then explains, “You are now poor like silver, wise as silver.” A male albatross carries her to his partner’s nest; while he searches for food, the female albatross uses her “expressive eye” to “tell me a secret about love.” After all, what better way to lose oneself than through the shamanic journey, in which the body is often left behind, or at the very least is likely to shift dimensions? Near the end of the book, the speaker playfully voices, “When the ripples from your hand dwindle and disappear / What will remain of you—perhaps—is a plump bug.”

In Book of the Edge, the three traditions of political poetry, Sufism, and shamanism coalesce to create a collection rife with life and death, body and spirit, serenity and chaos. Ece Temelkuran, who does not place herself in one particular school or movement of Turkish poetry, nevertheless proves, in these poems, to be a part of a larger movement—the great tradition of the poets of the world.

I met Ece Temelkuran in December 2004. I had been reading Book of the Edge with translation in mind, but had not yet begun translating. Over tea and snacks in a small café in the heart of Istanbul, I bombarded her with questions—a phenomenon that would last, via email and telephone, throughout the entire translation process. Luckily for me, Temelkuran never ceased to be helpful, in every aspect of the translation.

An important facet of Ece Temelkuran’s work is the innovative language. The juxtaposition between verse and prose, the playing with syntax and words, all make for a fresh use of language in the original text. Whenever possible, I have tried to capture a parallel wordplay in English.

One issue that came up repeatedly was how to translate the third-person pronoun. In Turkish, a single pronoun is used for men, women, and object in the third person. The author was very helpful in helping me determine what gender to give the animals in the poems. The question of how to gender people—especially the explorer—was more problematic. For Temelkuran, it was important to leave the explorer as genderless and universal as possible. Luckily, the explorer is referred to only once in third person in the collection. In this case, as in this Introduction, I opted to use the female pronoun, but I hope the reader will picture a “universal she,” rather than a woman necessarily.