49 Poems From Mosaic

Fota: Batur Fatih ilhan
fitim World Literatüre Today
No öne else inTurkey recreates îife aııd iangoage with Günersel's catacİysmic uınovations. Atrue original who not only has göne far beyond most of thedaring explorations of modern Turkisb verse but has also probed ths ouîer reaches posünoder-nism, concrete poetry, eompüttîr esthetics, postde-fonstructionisiH, and grammstology.
His poems bear no rescmbiance -ör relattonship-to those wriîien by anyone else in tbe Turkish language. He is tbe fîrst Turkİsh poct who is aot a troubadour and liıe first who has gainetl an ıınder-staading of the scîentific possibiîilies of verse. Not that he avoids the teiîipîations of Euıcient my-thology ör lust ör îove. He is as receptive -more than trât, as voracious- as a computer. He is prog-Tüirımed to make a new syaâıesis of ^1 the daîa he receives and to restnıcture il ali into poerMof a ııniquc esîhetic technology.
A draraatist whose plays scare producers with thcîr boldness, a librettisl who has given new vigor to tbe getire, a short-story writer wbose voice soımds uniilse any oîber in Turfcey, Gflucrsel creates st^ıning justapositions of abstractions aad eoncrctc ciements in his poetry. Ifwouldbe too facile to herald him as an enfaat terrible; his is a far more serioııs-nıİJided vision -and rnissîon: îo transform the Turkish po^sic esperience. The preseni collection stands (ör, rathct, takcs a quantuın leap) as a ncw dimeosionof imagination. His noveities predictabiy eaıcounter resistaııce from the iiîerary establishmeııt. As the tîtîe indicates, for the presenî the conservatives are ahead of the innovators,