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THE PROPHETS WORE LINEN
-With Lale Müldür in Istanbul
Photo by Cynthia Madansky.
Allow us to introduce the sensational Lale Müldür, who is seated on her couch in the Istanbul neighborhood of Cihangir smoking one of her beloved Marlboro menthols. The walls of the apartment are covered in paintings and photographs, except a bare spot of white directly facing her. There are many portraits of Lale, who is one of the greatest living Turkish poets, by artist friends of hers. Her shelves are stacked with works by Borges, Mallarmé and Catullus, books on religion, philosophy and the French theorists, titles like The Occult Philosophy of the Elizabethan Age and Le soleil d’Allah sur l’occident. There are several photographs of Nico below the bookshelf, and two Albrecht Dürer prints hanging above her head. In the corner of the room there is a small writing desk at the window overlooking the sparkling, streaming waters of the Bosporus, with the minarets of the Aya Sofya and the Blue Mosque across the Golden Horn. Today the view is somewhat interrupted by an enormous cruiseship that is parked in the port below. As she talks—her sentences constantly interrupted by gusts of laughter—seagulls come to land on her windowsill and peer into the room. Lale picks up a volume of her poetry called Water Music, and begins to read the first poem, “Barocco,” slowly but naturally in her warm, striated voice:
“She finally undresses for the species of ferocious seabirds. She drops her wedding ring into the water. — This is me, just before my divorce. — She leaves the singular pearl of winter in some other house… / Bending / refracted in the water / she sinks to the bottom. / Turning her seaweed eyes, she looks to Uranus.”
It’s about freeing herself, she says, opening herself to new, strange experiences. Uranus represents the unknown, unexpected, and “extraterrestrial.”
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