In Quest of the Simurgh: A Poetry Collection (Paperback or Softback)

Ahmet Murat, one of the most important figures in modern Turkish poetry, has proved to be a skilled craftsman in language, continuing a narrative adventure from classical to modern poetry with immaculate Turkish phrasing and robust strings of verses. For these reasons and more, Ahmet Murat is a pioneering Turkish poet. When Ahmet looks at the world, he looks from the top of a poetic mountain, and he sees God in small places everywhere in the everyday world. But his vision does not fill him with pride. Like the lone bird who arrives, he turns to the rest of the birds and says, "Look how close God is to all of us. Here he is, and here and here. We do not need to travel to the end of the world. To see him, we only need to look at one another with kindness and compassion, and look at the world with gratitude and wonder."

Ahmet Murat's poetry is like hanging on a meta-historic area transcending everyday life. The protagonist sometimes is a child, but most of the time an old saint who is trying to make sense of what's going on around him. His poetry stems from virgin nature, which he views as an explicit theophany. In this sense, he is in close proximity to American poetry. His astonishment at the universe and wonder at nature forces him to build a vertical relationship with the objects. Therefore, a high degree of symbolism and a refined ritualism are evident in his poems. His poetry is a preparation for a ceremony in frenzy and carries the possibility of touching a saint's hands. Ahmet Murat explores the possibility of words that will settle for God's consent.

Harun Tan
Founder and Art Director - Simurg Interdisciplinary Studio

Why do we love Ahmet Murat's poetry? He writes poems like his personality. This provides implicit trust to the reader. In his poems, it's not just people; the life of fruit also exists. We are facing a poet who is looking at nature from a window of wonders and is passionate about trees and birds. This point of view brings forth mercy, kindness, and beauty. Ahmet Murat is writing the highest quality poetry. Sometimes the poems give you peace and comfort; sometimes they make you feel uncomfortable. They give you peace of mind because his poems are crystal clear. They make you feel uncomfortable because they are unequivocally profound. Hence, we have been more cautious when reading his poems. I have followed his poetry for over twenty years. I can say that within his talent, we're in a spacious room overlooking a garden where the air is always fresh.

İbrahim Tenekeci
Poet and Editor - Itibar Poetry Journal

Ahmet Murat's poetry is not a poetry passing by but one permanently settled, not a flashing and fading one but one shining constantly, not a poetry of foam but the poetry of water. It brings the past and the future together in the house of the present, into a country with its own time zone, own meridians, and new beginnings and endings. His poems show you the closeness in remoteness and the remoteness in what is close. They are like tulle curtain that imprisons the wind in an unpredictable whiteness and the lasting knowledge that we are temporary ... Ahmet Murat's poetry is a stylistic revolution that embodies abstract wonders like an alchemist. When you enter his poems, you'll notice that what you see is less than what you realize. The bottom line: you hold one of the latest inventions of Turkish and Modern Turkish poetry, which is both ancient and brand new...

Furkan Çalışkan
Poet and Editor - Itibar Poetry Journal