Back-cover text:
Dear reader,
Set hypocrisy aside. You cannot compete with a poet in the realm of love. But remember: you have a strength of your own. An unread poem is like an unlived love, and poets often write of loves they have never known. All the more so when a poet speaks in the language of wisdom. His string will always flutter in the wind. You may leap up and catch it, taking it for the string of a kite, or leave it to decay in the anguish of solitude.
These are the poems of Nizar Qabbani, a poet who says, “I changed when I fell in love.” To call him a great poet is not enough. Has life made you bow your head? Be ready to raise it again. Wipe the rust from your mouth. Read poetry.
The Book of Love is dedicated to women. In its world, men are desert wanderers, mad with love. But do not forget, dear reader: the voice speaking in these poems belongs to a cunning man, crazed by love. He is ready to love without words, travel to the moon with his beloved, and surrender to desire at every crossing of reason and imagination.
The touch of Mehmet Hakkı Suçin, a gifted younger translator of Turkish, is a gift in its own right.
Dear reader,
“To be the king of time” is only a book away.
– Ömer Erdem