Azerbaijan’s notable poet Vagif Bayatly Oder, Honoured Art Worker, has published a new collection of poems entitled Bəy Atlı şeirlər (Bayatly’s Poetry). The collection is published by the Azerbaijan State Translation Centre.

The publication begins with an essay (‘A Poet in Tears’) by Afag Masud, and also includes more than 250 poems, among them ‘Know Me, Eternity’, ‘Let’s Make the Lie More Beautiful Than the Truth’, ‘A Smiley Native Face’, ‘Victims Weep for Executioners’, Immortality Doesn’t Come, You Go Towards IT!’, and ‘Love is not Enough to Become Mad in This World’. Plus the book is beautifully illustrated by Mezahir Avşar, Professor at Antalya-based Akdeniz University.

The essay says, “The author of these affecting poems is Vaqif Bayatly, acknowledger of sudden love, creator of the groans of the damaged soul. This master of the word came into the world on an unknown day, approximately in the first ten days of October, or maybe earlier, at the end of September. He succeeds our writers of genius, their souls damaged through contact with divine love, who endowed the treasury of world poetry with the deep wisdom, mysterious truth and wonder of the mystic Orient.

According to his mother, Vagif’s birthday “coincides with the final days of the fig season” - but we (Vagif’s pen-friends) picked him a new birthday to be October 1st. Why we chose this date, even we don’t know the reason...

…In fact, it had to be so.  He is incompatible with the universally accepted notions of Time and Space; the rules and frames cannot compass him, therefore his birthday was determined not due to the Time and Space criterion of Earth standards, but due to the time that he appeared in the special ‘Word Area’, among us where the Time and Space measures don’t work as “Vagif Jabrayilzade.” Strictly speaking, we could call into question even the exact year itself (that also saw off that unknown autumn day), in which Vagif was born.   

Vagif has his own ‘study’ on the Baku Seaside Boulevard, located under a huge oak tree whose upper branches protect him from heavy rains and lower branches from the Khazri — the cold wind that blows across the Caspian Sea. He does not visit this magic ‘place’ full of the smell of the sea and oak to get inspired to hear the leaves ‘quiet whispering’ above him or to behold with an enraptured air the ‘pearl foamy waters of the sad Caspian Sea’: he is here to be as a newborn hairless bird without feathers, to feel in his own warm nest, to wrap himself in his own world and to dissolve quietly,” .

Vagif Bayatly’s poetry is widely read in many countries from Turkey to Iran, the UK, the USA, even Australia - The Land Down Under.

Below are some of his poems translated by Tamam Bayatly:

More than Anyone Else

I can neither be the strongest man in the world,

Nor do I want to be.

I don't want anyone to be afraid of me.

I can neither be the wealthiest man in the world,

Nor do I want to be.

For me the greatest wealth in the world,

is a tiny tent with a smiling face and eyes, with an open door and windows!

I can neither love you more than anyone else in the world,

Nor do I want to love you so.

Because only those who love insincerely

Love more than anyone else.

I want to love you quietly and gently,

I want to love you as destined by God,

Like a small bird that has nestled against the tiny corner of its nest.

Let's Dance From Birth to Death

Let's dance,

Two-by-two! One-by-one!

Let's dance,

From birth to death!

Let's dance

Even when in tears,

With no stop and interruption,

From under our feet

Let the rhythm move

Back and forth.

Let's dance,

Raise the old man from his coffin.

I can see from his shroud

How he moves his arms and legs,

He is unwilling yet

To make his way to his grave,

Raise him to his last life dance,

As well as his first death dance.

Also raise the baby from its cot

I can see in its eyes

It's his music being played.

Rise, baby, rise! Let's dance

Arm-in-arm, hand-in-hand with everyone!

Be forbidden from now on

Kiss of lips and kiss of cheeks,

Let the names of lovers

Kiss each other,

Let the wings of garments,

The tunes of feet flying high,

And the breath of fingers

Swinging light,

Kiss one another.

All dancing

Face-to-face, eye-to-eye,

Let's cross beyond countries

And over the seas, all dancing,

Let's go beyond this world

and cross the universe.

And also, in the heavens

Hand-in-hand, arm-in-arm forever!

Look how both angels and devils

are moving,

Dancing side-by-side,

and together with the stars,

God is also applauding you.