Jason Rodriguez Vivrette and Ali Yağız Şen are finalizing the first complete English translation of Ahmed Arif's seminal 1968 poetry collection, Hasretinden Prangalar Eskittim (‘Longing for You Have I Worn Through Shackles’). This event will offer a talk about the work, a poetry reading, and musical performances. The talk will first contextualize Ahmed Arif and his Turkish-language work, particularly in relation to the dominant 'coastal voices' of Nazım Hikmet and Orhan Veli. While Ahmed Arif is widely known for his celebration of the mountainous eastern regions of Anatolia, the presentation will also explore how Arif legitimized such a shift away from the sea: adapting water discourses associated with the Mediterranean West to create an alternative 'hydro-poetics' of the land-locked East. In addition, the talk will touch on some of the challenges of translating the hyper-local, Kurdo-Anatolian terrain of Ahmed Arif's poetry into English. The talk will be followed by a reading of a sample of the translated poems in English, and musical performances of well-known song versions of some of Ahmed Arif’s poems. 

Jason Rodriguez Vivrette is a third-generation Oakland-native and a PhD candidate in the Department of Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley, specializing in Ottoman and Modern Turkish, Arabic, and Italian literatures. His dissertation project explores questions of hydropoetics and hydropower in the management of the peripheries of the Ottoman Empire, with a comparative focus on the frontier zones of Kurdistan and North Africa (including intersections with Sicily and the Italian Mezzogiorno). Since 2013, Jason has served as Lecturer in Turkish in the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at UC Berkeley, where he teaches all levels of Modern Turkish language, along with advanced courses in Ottoman, Turkish and Azeri literature and film. He holds an MA in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley, as well as BA degrees in both Film and Italian Studies from the University of Southern California. In addition to his academic accomplishments, Jason is an established musician (electric bass, piano, guitar, vocals). He is also the English translator of literary and scholarly works from Italian, Arabic, Modern Greek, French, and Ottoman and Modern Turkish.

Ali Yağız Şen is an Istanbul-born linguist, multi-instrumentalist, educator, and scholar, deeply engaged in the language and musical traditions of the Balkans. With a Master's degree in Linguistics from Boğaziçi University, he has over a decade of experience teaching Turkish at prestigious institutions like Boğaziçi University, the University of Pittsburgh, and The Turkish Program under the Halbuki Linguist Cooperative, of which he is a co-founder and the current director. Passionate about multilingualism and historical linguistics, Yağız dedicates much of his time to improving access to high quality education in less commonly taught languages, while supporting linguist livelihoods, linguistic justice, and revitalization of endangered languages at Halbuki. Fluent in Turkish, English, and German, he is also studying Russian and Quechua, and is an experienced translator, activist and researcher; his translation work includes the Turkish publication of Cities for People, not for Profit (2011). As a musician, Yağız is proficient in bouzouki, guitar, percussion, bass, and vocals. He leads The Metanastys, a San Francisco-based musical ensemble, fostering a communal approach to music through workshops and performances. Yağız has taught makam theory at the legendary Eastern European Folklife Center (‘Balkan Camp’) in Mendocino, CA.