The death of Feyyaz Fergar last April was agreat loss to the poetry of three nations -Turkish, British and French. I had known him and his artist wife Jula since we were students in Newcastle upon Tyne. Jula painted my portrait, and Feyyaz introduced me to modern Turkish poetry. He was intimately associated with the surrealist movement in Paris and London, and through him I came to meet the Belgian surrealist writer, musician and artist ELT. Mesens. I started translating modern French poets like Supervielle, Reverdy, Eluard and Desnos, at the same time helping Feyyaz with translations of Turkishpoets into French and English. From this poetic association, I learnt more about poetry and translation than from any British poet.

Feyyaz was unfailingly generous in his enthusiasms and in his criticisms. It is that quality of overwhelming enthusiasm for life and letters that animates all this creative work. The last ten years of his life.:were a very productive period, during which The Rockingham Press published a major collection of his poetry, A Talent for Shrouds (1991) and his author it ative Modern Turkish Poetry (1992) which was a Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation. Fergar had been publishing occasionally in small British magazines, with the encouragement of a dear friend, Danielle Hope, editor of Zenos and of Mevlut Ceylan, editor of Core. Another enthusiastic supporter was John Gonzalez, editor of Periaktos, and I was able to include some of Feyyaz' haikuesque poems and translations in various Japanese publications.
...