APRIL 3, 2026 PLACE My Garip (strange) Hunger DIDEM KOCHAN Groundcover contributor Ever since I was a child, I found eating to be a chore that interrupted my daydreaming. Yet whenever my parents and I approached the ferry docks to cross the Bosphorus, a sudden, miraculous hunger would overcome me. “I’m hungry,” I would insist, wideeyed and urgent. My parents, ever hopeful my appetite would finally arrive, would buy me a simit (Turkish bagel, crusty, golden, thick with toasted sesame seeds). But as soon as we stepped onto the ferry and the engines began to thrum against the waters of the Bosphorus, my hunger would change shape. I didn’t want to eat the simit. I wanted to give it away. I stood at the railing, salt air whipping my hair, tearing the bread into small pieces. A white cloud of seagulls followed the boat like a screaming escort, as if they knew this ferry ritual was about to begin. I tossed the pieces into the wind and watched the birds dive and catch them mid-air without ever missing a beat. By the time we reached the other side, the simit was gone, the seagulls were fed, and I was full, not of bread, but of the simple joy of that ritual. I did not know it then, but years before I was born, someone in Istanbul had already been paying attention to moments like this. His name was Orhan Veli Kanık. In the 1940s, poetry in Turkey often favored elaborate metaphors and elevated language; art was meant for a refined elite. But Orhan Veli, along with his friends (Melih Cevdet Anday and Oktay Rifat), decided to strip the finery off the verse. Blending their socialist perspective with their poetry, they began what became known as the “Garip movement” (garip means strange, but it also refers to an outsider, or someone forgotten). Their manifesto was simple but radical: poetry should belong to the common person. The Garip movement focused on everyday subjects with a sense of humor, irony and satire. They abandoned traditional rhyme in favor of the natural rhythm of a conversation at a tea house. Orhan Veli wrote about life in his favorite city, Istanbul, the women he liked, men with empty pockets and fine weather. He famously wrote about the nagging discomfort of a corn on a man’s foot, a subject that shocked the literary establishment of the time. He let the street enter the poem. I would like to believe that Orhan Veli would not have judged me for my little lie to get that simit for the seagulls. He understood that sometimes we bend the truth of our needs to satisfy the truth of our hearts. He once introduced himself simply as “Bir garip Orhan Veli” (just a strange or simple-hearted Orhan Veli). There is something deeply human in that simplicity. His poems never demand greatness, they ask only for attention. In “İstanbul’u Dinliyorum” (I Am Listening to Istanbul) he begins and repeats: “I am listening to Istanbul, with my eyes closed…” This famous poem unfolds through sound and sensation: a breeze moving leaves, distant bells, water brushing against a pier. Nothing monumental happens. The city breathes, and he listens. Orhan Veli preserved the Istanbul that history books often ignore. He looked for the laundry hanging from balconies, saw the fishermen on the shore, and caught the late afternoon light striking the water just so. As the poem reaches its end, it turns from the sounds of the street to the pulse of a person: “I am listening to Istanbul, with my eyes closed; A bird flutters at your hem; I know if your forehead is warm or not; I know if your lips are wet or not; A white moon rises behind the pine trees, I understand it all from the beating of your heart; I am listening to Istanbul.” In ”Aşk Resmi Geçidi”(Love’s Parade), he lists his past loves without a trace of drama or tragedy. For example, he recalls his second love (maybe a childhood crush), Münevver Abla, an older girl whose garden he used to leave secret, earnest letters in, hoping she would notice him: “She’d burst into laughter as she read the letters I’d keep writing and throwing into her garden. As for me, I still feel the shame even today Whenever I remember those letters.” In his world, people pass through a heart as casually as they might walk through a neighborhood. There is humor here, and a gentle self-mockery. It doesn't feel like a declaration so much as a shrug, a recognition that life happens, we feel its sting, and we move on. Perhaps that is why his poetry has always soothed me. Now, I find myself living in Ann Arbor. The geography is different, of course. Instead of the vast, salty Just like Orhan Veli, Istanbul will always remain my favorite city. It is the place where my heart first learned to listen with its eyes closed. But I have crossed another kind of water since those ferry rides. I have learned that expanse of the Bosphorus dividing two continents, I have the quiet, winding Huron River. When I first moved here, I looked for my childhood Istanbul in the cracks of the sidewalk. I missed the ferry rides and the smell of roasted chestnuts on every corner. But as I settled into my new home, I started to realize that Orhan Veli’s Garip philosophy travels remarkably well. And slowly, Ann Arbor revealed its own “Garip” moments. They appear in the way people gather at the Farmers’ Market on a Saturday morning, in the person standing on the corner of a street, selling this very paper, or in the way the town holds its breath during the first snowfall. I would like to thank Orhan Veli for teaching me how to “listen to” a city, and I imagine a few lines in his spirit for our Groundcover vendors: “A stack of papers under one arm, A smile for the wind. He stands where the street meets the morning light, Waiting for a neighbor to notice.” A statue of Orhan Veli and his seagull friend in Istanbul GROUNDCOVER NEWS 7 Two simple souls sharing a bench: one in shape, one in memory. home is not only where the Bosphorus glitters. It is wherever I notice those simple Garip moments. I no longer pretend to be hungry before boarding ferries. Everyone knew, even then, that my hunger was strategic. But I still believe in small offerings, “the Garip acts.” A piece of bread tossed into the wind. A line of verse that does not try to be important. A quiet moment saved from vanishing, like a seagull snatching a crumb of simit in mid-air.
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