And in the End There Was Plastic… is a recording of Alphan Vardarlı reading a selection of his poems, recorded on 7 December 2025 in Çanakkale, Türkiye.
The work is shaped by a wide range of influences, including cinema, music, song lyrics, novels, the history of science, art and religion, as well as aphorisms, idioms, proverbs, caricatures, and folklore. The poems reflect on nature, philosophy, the human condition, and its tragic dimensions. Across the reading, the poet revisits experiences, insights, and personal truths gathered through lived paths and encounters. The text functions both as a form of self-address and as a reflection on what should not be repeated, combining observation, memory, and ethical awareness.
Bless the patron of power.
Then ahoy fertility, ar-ar the meaning of boundless, the propagation of what is chosen from
purple, the un-importance of how little the small brilliance is, it’s unique place amongst
every billionth of shining, variable; the undying fire in every furnace. Prettier when left
alone and moreish, this partnership is a unity as the expression of uniqueness, we are in a
certain kind of traffic but we are more than just a headcount counting heads on
approximate heights and speeds for accident stories, it is a quantum arm that rests on the
shoulders of master drivers, who indeed are the ones that warn the half asleep, as well as
appear in the dreams of being on the road. Whereas the good and the bad both begin with
two people. Even to be able to calculate benefit and loss, I, you and us need to hold onto
an adultness; politeness is the existence of the individual, politeness that the ones who
want to drown it in mythology cannot stand, for it exists even though power exists. The
wagons of the crush and go-on lot, are focals of meaning and they do not have time for
subtleties; so I ask on, if it does not have time for niceties why am I the one who is
yearning for the infinite play of the baglama?
The project is part of the subtheme Symbiotic Futures – Ecopoetics in the Age of Extinction.
Author
Alphan Vardarlı
A poet, a researcher and a self-trained painter born in 1978. Been writing poetry since he was 15 years old. In his 20’s he collaborated with peers from the University of Amsterdam to publish an online magazine and a zine, where his poetry, drawings and collages took part. In his 30’s he took to the stage reading his poetry in Spoken Word İstanbul and the poetry events of different literature groups in Çanakkale. Çanakkale Olay Newspaper also printed his poems in the newspaper’s art pages. Falling to a Tea House Garden/Çay Bahçesine Düşerken a bilingual poetry book was published by Kavim Yayınları in 2017. He self published As is Love, a poetry book in 2019.
