Poet, Prof.Dr. Mammad Ismayıl was born in November, 1939 in the Esrik village of Tovuz region in Azerbaijan republic. His father Murshud died during the Second World War when he was a year old. He finished the secondary school in Esrik in 1957, later in 1964 he graduated from Azerbaijan State University. He successfully completed two years of higher literature courses of “The Union of
Writers of the USSR” in Moscow and in 1998 he received his doctorate with a thesis titled “The motifs of Ashik poem in the modern Azerbaijan Poetry”. He worked as a department manager of Azerbaijan Television and Radio company from 1966 to 1973, an editor-in-chief in the cinema studio from 1976 to 1983, later, between the years 1983-1987 he was a general director of “Ishik” publishing house. He became a founder and a general manager of the magazine called “ Genclik” (Molodost), published in two languages: Azerbaijani and Russian from 1988 to 1992, a secretary of the Union of Azerbaijan Writers and the director of the Literary Union of Young Writers of the same union from 1986 to 1997. He was the general manager of the Television and Radio State Company of Azerbaijan from 1992 to 1993. Mammad Ismayıl was selected a co-chairman of Democratic Forces which had an important role in the struggle for freedom in Azerbaijan. In 1993, because of his political views, he had to leave his Motherland and from 1995 to 1996 he worked as a specialist in 96 the project of Turkish Polish Dictionary of the Turkish Language Association in Ankara. Since 1996 he is a professor at Canakkale 18 March University. He was a member of Union of Writers and Journalists in the USSR and still he is a member of Union of Writers of Azerbaijan and Eurasia. He is a representative of Turkey in the Union of International Writers and Journalists and a member of the editorial board of the journal “Literaturnaya Znakomstvo” (Literary Acquaintance) published in Moscow. The poems of Mammad Ismayıl were translated into more than fifty languages and published in different countries. Until now, more than twenty books in Azerbaijani, eight books in Russian in Moscow, nine books in Turkish in Turkey, one book in Kazakh in Kazakhstan, two books in French in France were published. He was rewarded to “ Golden Pen” for the television program “Land of Fire” in 1969, “Komsomol” for the book of poems “The word told in time” in 1978, N.Ostrovski reward for the books “Arable land over the sea” and “The word told in time” in Moscow. In 1996, he became first in the poetry competition “Happy Birthday Week” organized by the Foundation of Religious Affairs of Turkey, consequently, in 1997 Mammad Ismayıl was rewarded to “Service to Turkish World” medal by Association of Writers and Artists of Turkey. In September 2012,
he received the diploma of first degree in the International Symposium held in Crimea where four hundreds of scientists and artists had attended. Later in 2014 in Moscow, he was rewarded to “Sergey Yesenin” medal and got the certificate of “Golden Fall” for the contribution to the Russian and Turkish literature. More than one hundred and fifty scientific works were translated and published in different languages of the world. He is the author of many scientific documentaries, more than fifty poems were composed by the composers. He participated in the international poem festivals in Hungary, Syria, Russia, Turkey, Vietnam, Rumania, Yakutiya and other countries. His poems were published in “Anthology of World Poetry” in Rumania in 2015. Each year the literary award in his name is given in Turkey
GOD KNOWS
Where does it get its sweetness
how can the honey know?
If you can,
go and ask,
The bee knows.
Where did you sleep in the night
you know
Where will you wake up in the morning
The God knows.
SACRED DESTINY
For the memory of my mother Gülzar
We were four
A spotted sheep
A wild apple
My mother and me
In the memory of future life
They were sent to the Earth
My mother was the bridal dress of the beauty
The apple was the sprout of the forests
I was the babyhood of the humanity
When you have a time, just squeeze me
And see who I am?!
I am a mother pie,
Apple juice, sheep milk.
I AM AT THE PLACE YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN
-Spring, where do you come from?
From the place I found the God
– Summer, where do you come from?
-From the place I was aged
– Autumn, where do you come from?
From the place I was withered up
-Winter, where do you come from?
From the place I was forgotten
Mourning for the life passed
I’m at the north coast.
Sun behind the clouds
I am in a foreign land
Is there anyone who asks for me?
Where am I, where am I?
Search your memory well
I am at the place you have forgotten.
PICTURE OF THE FATHER
Railway station … Train rails
In the middle, snow falls in silence
At the back, backless youth
How could he know, what is ahead
Separation … the heart of the time was bored
A darkening evening on the horizon
My father was with me, my luck was awake
My luck was awake, but I was sleeping
Do these cold verses say something
The sound of the snow was also heard later…
Imagine a mother, aged twenty,
A son, at most, at one and a half years
Destiny can see the things the human cannot see
What happened in the past, what will happen in the future
This train intends to take us apart
Released with steam breath
Need to talk was freezing in the air
Father’s words are broken:
“The light of my eyes, open your eyes
Maybe, this is the last separation!
What is this bitter cold?
My premonition came true
There is no need to prove or explain
The word “father” is already a proof .
Days passed, months passed, years heaped up
The time nibbles my life bit by bit…
I shut my eyes, my luck is tied up
Even I untie it, my luck will not be unwrap.
The name of “the father” is my lifetime comrade
The blood of the memory of my childhood is cold…
There is nothing left such as memories
There is not even a picture to look and cry…
… The time tries to exit through the gap,
The snow spinning in the air…
Life leaves the life… From this separation
The train leaves with the smoke on its head…
Time was trembling when thinking something
It holds Joseph’s cut rope
One of the road would have a return,
But one is “one way only”.
The train pulls off the unbearable troubles
Seeing the state of the person who looks but not see
Day already down on the mountains
The moon was glad see the clouds in the sky.
The train would take off pulling the troubles
The dreams of the baby was snowy…
If he had open his bloody eyes, maybe
He would have a picture of his father within himself…
SWORD HANGING ON HOPE
Our mind was young and sufficient at that time
Nostalgia was wandering around the stream and the plains
A name was mentioned during the conversation.
We were like a sword hanging on hope,
The mothers took us from the swaddle
And put us in between the themselves and desire
… So, after a hard day came the evening
The sun would fall down to the branch of mountain from the distance.
The mother would have the evening in her eyes,
The brides were fall to the bed, tired.
Someone would knock the door,
Open,
Me, I came.
The footsteps would fall down to the heart
Return back and come back again…
In the dreams of the mother brides,
The empty space of the soldier fathers.
There was the pain in the dawn,
There was …
It was not heard and no one knows.
It was the snow on the roads,
It was snow.. No one came to the houses…
The footpaths were dead at the many gardens
The roads were facing each other come to an end…
In the sleeping snowy village
Only the fresh sprouts were awakening.
We were like a sword hanging on hope,
We were sharp: :
Sharp as the word “I Love” !
Sharp as the eye of the needle
As the selfish greedy eyes…
The cry and complain of the bride
Hardly could warm her mother heart
Her emotions and desires had died
Her love and affections as well…
Where would the flow of the life goes
The burned off and dimmed out.
They brightened their husband’s home
And were transformed to a “honour nest” !
Give me the familiar smell of the pillows,
Drown, suppressed excitements…
Give the mothers’ bridesgown
The lives lived and died in one heart
There is a part of their life in our life’s
Maybe the mothers made a mistake
Give it, what is the sin of the brides?
Our mind was young and sufficient at that time
Nostalgia was wandering around the stream and the plains
A name was mentioned during the conversation.
We were like a sword hanging on hope,
The mothers took us from the swaddle
And put us in between themself and desire
Between this earth
Between this sky
Between this world
Between the their love and themselves!… English version by Baanu Akkok