2016 Sen ki Topraksın, 7`, for 6 instruments

The title in Turkish is a quotation from a narrative poem of the turkish poet Nazım Hikmet Ran, Şaban Oğlu Selim ile Kitabı(Selim Son of Şaban and his book) from the poem cycle Dört Hapishaneden Şiirler, published post-humously in 1966. A more close translation of the turkish title in English would be ‘you, since you are the soil’, since the original phrase not only contains a statement(you are the soil) but also is a subordinate clause, it is grammatically incomplete and needs to be put in a larger context. This usage of the relative pronoun ki is rare in Turkish and makes this phrase very particular(if not pompous) and puts an appealing stress on sen(you) as in the Latin vocative clause; it turns the whole phrase into an appeal to the soil, which is followed by seni sevmeyi bilmeli(one must know to love you [or] that one must know to love) in the poem. 

Şaban Oğlu Selim ile Kitabı is a narrative poem telling the story of the factory worker Selim, who among other events in his life, runs across a small book and receives a huge impact from reading it.The fictional author is appealing to its creator with a modesty which is common among believers, but his lack of fear in doing so is noteworthy; speaking on behalf of the whole humanity, his self-criticism of how humanity violates the soil morally has no implication of sin and punishment but it is instead an ironic depiction of vanity. In the poem, powerful emotions are stimulated in the protagonist Selim upon his reading of his book, which oblige him to take actions that eventually lead to his execution by the authoritarian state. To imagine what kind of a blessing nature gave to Selim has occupied my mind consistently and provided me the concentration to work on this piece, a fancy of the soils response to the appeal.