& Silk & Love & Flame

Birhan Keskin's poetry is finely-honed, powerful in its visuals, evocative and exact. Fluid and elusive, her poems explore the space between understanding and remembering, testimony and invention.
This book selects work from six of Keskin's books, including her prize-winning collection Ba, and George Messo's outstanding translation enables us to appreciate to the full the work of this exceptional poet. Introduced by Bloodaxe poet and playwright Amanda Dalton.
Birhan Keskin was born in Kırklareli, Turkey, in 1963. Her first poems began to appear in 1984. She has published seven collections of poetry in Turkish, including Ba, which won Turkey's prestigious Golden Orange Award in 2005.
George Messo is a poet, translator, and editor. His translation of Ilhan Berk's A Leaf About to Fall: Selected Poems (Salt, 2006) was shortlisted for the Popescu European Translation Prize in 2006. His translations of Keskin's poetry have already appeared in Shearsman.
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Birhan Keskin was born in Kirklareli, Turkey, in 1963. She graduated from Istanbul University with a degree in Sociology. Her first poems began to appear in 1984. From 1995 to 1998 she was joint editor of the small magazine Gocebe. She has since worked as an editor for a number of prominent publishing houses in Istanbul. She has published over seven collections of poetry in Turkish and has seen a collection of critical responses to her poetry published. Birhan Keskin was the 2005 winner of Turkey's prestigious Golden Orange Award.