Ozan Zakariya Keskinkılıç
- Germany -
Ozan Zakariya Keskinkılıç, born in 1989, is a political scientist, freelance author and poet. He studied in Vienna, Berlin and Cambridge, and teaches and researches at universities in Berlin on topics including (anti-Muslim) Racism, Antisemitism, Orientalism, Memory, and Critical Art and Cultural Production. In spring 2023, his highly acclaimed book "Muslimaniac. Die Karriere eines Feindbildes" was published in a new edition by Verbrecher Verlag. In addition to academic texts, Keskinkılıç writes columns, essays, prose, radio plays and poetry. His poems are published in various literary journals and anthologies and translated into various languages, including English, Italian and Kazakh. In 2022, his poetry debut "Prinzenbad" was published by ELIF Verlag. In his poems, Muslim spirituality, memories and queer desire form the literary coordinate system for a journey through alternative geographies. His lyrical works have been presented as part of multimedia art exhibitions at the Grassi Museum Leipzig, the Literaturpassage Vienna and most recently at the ACUD Gallery in Berlin. In 2023, he was SchreibZeit fellow in Stiftung Niedersachsen’s "Poetry in the Digital Age" program. In 2024, he was nominated for the Clemens-Brentano-Preis. Keskinkılıç has also been nominated for this year's Dresden Poetry Prize; the jury considers the outstanding features of his writing to include "language that creates open visual and perceptual spaces, sharply contrasted with hard-hitting irony, working with clichés and attributions, humor and a high degree of variability". Keskinkılıç is currently writing his second volume of poetry. He lives in Berlin.
The poet and his eyelashes
In the fall of 2020, I was answering the last emails of the day and was about to shut my computer down when I suddenly received an email. From Ozan Zakariya Keskinkilic, it asked whether ELID was accepting new manuscripts. The program had been finalized through spring 2022 and I was busy with the final maintenance work on my own poetry collection. That’s what I wrote him, too. A year later, Zakariya got in touch again, I read the manuscript’s first chapter “flying while muslim” that day and wrote him: Hoşgeldin in ELIF VERLAG. In August 2022, the lyrical debut Prinzenbad was published in the fall program and now we’re on its third printing.
on this rug, the tears don’t run over the border, not over the floorboards, not over the street, not over the bridge to the nearest bed.
Every second question we publishers receive is about how we select manuscripts. There’s no definitive answer to this question, just like there’s no definitive answer to the questions about all the relationships in our lives, otherwise things would be way too easy. Zakariya’s poetry conveyed a sense of openness that I rarely see. Through a literary dialect that’s all his own, a young man opens himself up, nothing about his lines is contrived, nothing’s intended to serve an air of importance. Honest, gentle, and vulnerable, he allows his tears to flow from a deep well. Naked, he exposed himself to a world that his own scent could quickly drift away from. I read Zakariya’s poetry as a protest against this giant steamroller, and that without resorting to loud slogans, he didn’t need them, each word flowed like a clear rivulet, forming a larger puddle with each word that came after it, a puddle that you’d like to stomp in barefoot like a small child.
on train platforms, at bus stops, in the terminal, i feel so muslim.
A characteristic of Zakariya’s is also to discover new, previously unnamed realms for language and to play with these spaces in a credible manner. He bares his own body, his unfiltered emotions through a rebellious practice. As is suggested by the blurb: he effortlessly crosses borders in order to exist. He augments the desolate present with memories and sketches his colorful ornaments onto the cold stubbornness of the world. Traversing vast geographies, he gives us yet another reminder that our birthplaces are not the center of the world. There’s more to explore, there are other wounds, other windows, that show more than just the front yard or garden plot. There are other wildernesses, other scents, other steppes that we don’t incorporate into our world view, into our actions, enough. Maybe that’s why we slip between the jaws of a pair of pliers and validate our existence with banal judgments.
nene’s hair smells of olive soap, of a hushed moon, of sprigs of thyme.
Whether it’s the olive soap, the hushed moon, or the bent thyme sprigs, Zakariya’s poetry harbors an invitation. Those who accept this invitation will enjoy novel explorations, freeing themselves from unwanted dross/prejudices. Loss and triumph, courage and apprehension go hand in hand on this journey. The one gives voice to the other. Being queer and Muslim, an unimaginable symbiosis for many in this society, are effortlessly expressed without any aims to lecture. A tradition that has been present for centuries in world literature reemerges in the form of a love letter penned to an anonymous recipient. Unconditionally, without burdening the other person with one’s own desires.
in the changing room every attempt to untangle the soft hairs of your thighs from my pupil fails. i looked around, no one leaves the gate like you.
And sometimes he lets go of the taut bow, whether the blazing arrow hits the target remains a mystery. Isn’t poetry also a place where we can forget every answer to our wishes and embrace new questions?
your slightly spiky cheeks, your chest around the blue light. good reception is necessary to kiss, to fuck too.
No more words need to be written about Zakariya’s poetry, even this is too much. It requires no explanations, it flows in its own bed, it opens out and stays that way for a new cycle. After our chat in the fall of 2021, we arranged to meet in Berlin. I went to this rendezvous with a friend. Zakriya showed up on a bike, his white socks made me smile. I had no clue that they were trendy again. At this meeting, we talked about the process. Zakariya didn’t express any great expectations like those one often hears as a publisher, in his soft voice he answered my questions succinctly. That was a good sign to me. Only poets who have faith in their texts can exude this sense of tranquility. After an hour, we went on our separate ways. My friend felt like the guy was arrogant. I didn’t agree with him, there’s a fine line between arrogance and self-awareness. With Zakariya, it was the latter. Then I asked my friend if he had noticed his eyelashes. What do you mean, he asked. A poet with eyelashes like that can only be talented, I told him. He didn’t get it, naturally. But I knew I was right. Someone, who will never lose his words.
i’m afraid, sez my child. i’m afraid i’ll lose my words in my sleep.
Dinçer Güçyeter
All quotes are from Ozan Zakariya Keskinkılıç’s volume Prinzenbad, which was published by ELIF VERLAG in 2022
Poetry
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U8 / U8
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zoo / zoo
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ah viyana viyana olalı / ah viyana viyana olalı
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location: siegessäule / standort: siegessäule
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postcard from abul abbas in exile / postkarte von abul abbas aus dem exil
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the abduction from the seraglio / die entführung aus dem serail
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tripoli in berlin, 1927 / tripolis in berlin, 1927
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letter to harun al-rashid, or: abul abbas settles the score / brief an harun al-rashid oder: abul abbas rechnet ab
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şahmaran’s will / şahmarans testament
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february storm / februarsturm
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hurriyah / hurriyah
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tonight you want to forget your name / heute nacht willst du deinen namen vergessen
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klimt’s beethoven frieze / klimts beethovenfries
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revenge / rache
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Allah yarhamo / Allah yarhamo