Emine Erkan, poet
Emîne Erkan, Awirên Xeyîdî, published by Weşanxana Payîz, 2023. In Kurmanci.
In 2016 Emîne Erkan, born in Sirnak, age nineteen, was a young musician, singing, playing the tembûr, the flut, and the erbane, and giving music lessons at the Mesopotamian Cultural Center. But that year she was detained, arrested, and sentenced to eight years and nine months in prison. She has been imprisoned in Elazig for the past six years. She was to have been released in January, but as punishment for obstructing a surveillance camera, her prison term was extended by three years. She was put in solitary confinement.
Erkan resists with the weapon available to her: her words. She has just published Awirên Xeyîdî, a book of poems that express her suffering and fury but also her dreams and hopes.
Dageran
sîha reş bi ser min de bê
heke nebim xêlîvanên
kolanên xerabe
ketime bextê te
heke careke din
bikeve navbera min û te
dest bavêje tifinga du lûle
nede xatirê tu kesî
lê bide!
û lê bide!
xwezî min ji rave hilbikira
janaxwe ya lerzok
Three of her fellow inmates wrote prefaces to the collection. One is Leyla Güven, former co-mayor of Viranşehir and MP for Hakkari, is serving a sentence of 27 years and 3 months. Noting that Emîne was imprisoned at nineteen, she writes, “Yes, in our country children cannot live a decent childhood, any more than the young their youth and the old their old age. With us, everyone grows up with the weight of their suffering and torment. Everyone lives with the tenacious idea that confinement and death are never far away. … I am so happy to have met Emîne. From the peak of her youth, she writes in our beautiful language the poems of our country, and we are infinitely grateful to her.”
Hülya Alokmen Uyanik, who succeeded Gültan Kışanak co-mayor of Diyarbakir, was then deposed and sentenced to 10 years and 6 months in prison. She writes of her fellow prisoner: “Emîne has spun her feelings with a spindle and prepared magic and multicolored threads. She has woven a carpet that she spreads out in front of you. You will soon walk on it.” Far from expressing the darkness of a cell, her poems bring together “a summer breeze, the shadow of Mount Cudi, the murmur of the Tiger, all the flowers and perfumes of Botan or even the lullabies of the women of Şirnex. . . . We know the meaning of [the prison’s] cold walls for Kurdish society and people. We will take them down, totally. Emine has filled her bag here. When she walks free through the streets of Şirnex, throw her the flowers in yours. Wait for her. We thank her for her work and for the connection she has established with life.”
Remziye Yaşar, deposed co-mayor of Yüksekova, was sentenced to 17 years and 6 months in prison. “I would have so many things to say about my friend. But I will settle for just one: I have acquired this conviction that Hevala Emîne will in the future become an example for young Kurdish women but also, through her poems and her songs, a reference for Kurdish literature and culture. I wish you, hevala, a long and beautiful life. May your hopes and the ink of your pen resemble the Tigris and the Euphrates. May they always flow and be endless.”
The closing poem:
Mixabin
Bajar bi mijê kete nava xewê
Pagerîvan di nav alûleyên de
Stranên distirên
Kesên ku me nedîtî
Hezar helînên kemînê vegertine
Peyman te akortekirin
Ew ê dîsa xerab bibe
Sources for this article:
André Métayer, “Awiren Xeyidi: Regards affligés, méprisés, en colère, regards-noirs-et-furieux. Emine Erkan publie depuis la prison d’Elazig son premier roman,” Amitiés kurdes de Bretagne, April 28, 2023.
Feratê Dengizî, “Awaz û axîna dil e; helbest,” Xwebûn, April 14, 2023.
