Our motto, “Looking is to grasp the emptiness”, comes from Ozan Can Turkmen’s book of Az Önceki Oda. It was published in the Winter 2015 issue of çün’, where Turkmen was one of the editors.

It is possible to start to understand the classic difference between “looking” and “seeing” to get our message. A Sufi Nifferî, who I think have similar literary texts with Turkmen, says that “the more you see, the more there would be a narrower way of expression of what you see”. Nifferî is a sufi, which is not possible to have no idea about his works without İbn-i Arabi. As parallel with his philosophical position, Nifferî prefers to remain not visible.

If we take Turkmen’s words as “the valued one is the look itself” by taking the Arabic origin of the words “benefit (fayda)” and “expression (ifade)”, then, we absolutely reach to Nifferî’s position from the opposite: “Looking is the form of expression except for seeing.”

Let us see the meaning of such saying. Here, I would say that my very dear friend Ufuk Akbal’s poetry, who I consider the relative of Turkmen’s sayings, help me a lot:

“Emptiness is the place where I cannot listen Radiohead.” There is unhappiness in Akbal’s emptiness, and his valuation has been occurred by hearing/listening. That is the exact place where my mind combined these two of them. These poets prefer to move forward on their path with different means in where the seeing is the main paradigm. That is the space where the distinction between the poetic and poem erased. That is the utopia!

Now let us fill the gap left by Akbal and get on where we left off.

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