Tonight, a recording of Selcan Peksan reading her poem “After Five Years” in the original Turkish. The poem’s title refers to the world being five years into the lockdown that opens Selcan’s Slippage, a post-apocalyptic collection Bored Wolves is publishing this summer.1 Our English version of the poem, translated from the Turkish by the brilliant Anna Wood, is below, but I encourage you to first listen to Selcan’s reading of the original. Even if you don’t understand it, you’ll understand it.
Slippage is illustrated by the Slovakian artist Maja Daneková, who has been constructing scenes and generating atmospheres that pace the narrative from Selcan’s apartment in Istanbul during the lockdown’s opening hour deep into a neo-primeval time to come.
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After Five Years by Selcan Peksan
In every place on earth that sees the sun
in every place on earth that sees the sun
in the homes with terraces and balconies
in the homes with gardens and picture windows
in the cracks in the street
weeds run rampant
ivy scales skyscrapers
monstera babies lift the ceiling
cracking joists
monstera monstera deliciosa
covering all the ground
where children once laughed and played
the plant population outnumbers
even the mouse.
From the almanac for reaping and sowing:
A sack of potatoes I bought to store away
I cooked with them once
made a salad and fried some
naturally the rest sprouted in the cellar
I cut them into pieces
buried them in the front garden
in a plot of eleven square meters
the last clove of garlic and red cabbage together
I also got a philodendron
there was a sale at tedi I couldn’t resist
apparently you’re popular now
monstera monstera you monster
I named you roo
my little brother’s childhood nickname
short for fruitlet
when he got bigger he became melon head.
(trans. Anna Wood)
Originally published, in Turkish, as Selcan Peksan, İnsandan Sonra [After Humans] (Istanbul: Nod, 2020).
