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Dağlarca at 100

Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca passed away at the age of 94, taking his ‘inner poetry beast’ along, but leaving us thousands of verses. In a 1991 or 1992 interview, he famously declared, ‘Leave me alone for two hundred years; if I fail to solve all the mysteries of nature, people and animals, then burn me and all my verses millions of times. Or sling my rope onto the farthest star and I’ll swing.’

Dağlarca may now be one hundred years old, but in his own words, his ‘Real age is the sum total of the times I read, wrote and edited poetry.’