In a vast world, there is undoubtedly vast beauty. At the core is the beauty of nature; the shimmering sunsets and lush landscapes watching which our civilization emerged, imposing equally magnificent constructions: larger-than-life statues of heroes, acoustic amphitheaters that gave life to affairs of democracy and entertainment, and modern transportation infrastructure supporting globalized commerce.
Mt. Rushmore, South Dakota
The Ruins at Miletus, in Aydin, TurkeyThe Amphitheater at Sagalassos, Isparta
Sunset over the Aegean
My ancestral Turkey is a prime travel destination, at the intersection of numerous civilizations, from Mesopotamians to Greeks and Ottomans. There’s a certain satisfaction to touring an area wither you originate, along with the convenience of sharing a language and common background with the locals.
โSuccess is precisely measured not by wealth or status, but by the kilos of Baklava one consumes over the course of their lifetime. In that sense, life is an optimization problem: I could eat 20 kg today and die of stroke, or never eat desserts and live to be 100.
Both are suboptimal.โ
Kutluhan Erol, PhD
My Father
Cemil Baba's Kuru Baklava is my favorite of the Baklava I've tried in Izmir.
Reyhan Pastanesi (Agora), Swiss Cake
Patisserie 46, MN
Patisserie Saint Germain, Atlanta
Music
Music
Music
Music
Music is surprisingly mathematical, an algebra of sorts that once internalized, opens up a universe of compositional artistry. I’ve played classical violin for 15 years now, following the Suzuki method from a young age. Finding something to improve on every single day, applying my instructor’s feedback when practicing alone, inspired discipline as I grew up.
Music truly warms the soul, a connection to other worlds that transcends cultural boundaries.
The voice is a most expressive instrument; as such, musicality supersedes technical perfection. A vocal performer who has taken part in several operas, I learned to balance gentle phrasing with the physicality needed to fill a concert hall. I am a recipient of the Royal Conservatory of Music Gold Medal for Voice.
That was ‘Quia Respexit’ from Bach’s Magnificat, performed when I was 13 years old, as depicted in the image on the right. If you’re curious what my voice sounds like these days: Faure’s ‘Pie Jesu’ with amphitheater acoustics, from my travels in Summer 2023.
CAT!!!… need I say more?
โGod grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to tell the difference.“
Rabbi’s Serenity Prayer
Poetry
To me, poetry is an artistic tool second only to music. The expressiveness associated with the form and semantics of a poem create many opportunities for impact, beauty, and discourse.
This first poem I composed in my second month of college, in vague response to crises in Ukraine and the Middle East. I make tributes to many great poets, both of antiquity such as Vergil and Ovid, and our relative contemporaries in Emma Lazarus, Edgar Allan Poe, and a couple others. I’m rather proud of how it turned out, since I rarely write in free verse,. It bears close similarity to how I write descriptive prose.
Resonance from the Shadows
By Ansel Erol
In the forlorn darkness and undulating depth
With fleeting hope I yearn for everlasting strength
To seek solace and peace amidst the teeming masses
Wander freely among the scarred souls in absence
And locate a perch for their withering ashes.
I know that such courage shall never arrive
Unburden me from unending strife, nor
Grace my spirits with her majestic stride.
But buried deep within my internal sepulchre
Lies a fervor, a vehemence so severe
It induces fear in those whom it does not
Bring tears. If only it were not restrained
In the threshold of a captor
crueler than those bodies depraved
I would rise, rise beyond the chilled hearts
and still chests of scattered souls, the trumpets
of ravens signaling a feast to their flock, or
the final glint of sunlight surveying the morning dew
parting its colors across a vibrant spectrum.
Icarus would be envious of these triumphant wings
Fastened not by wax and twine but unbridled rage
Not just mine, but of an entire nation
Projected against the temporal scale of generations
To thrust this one particular man into bold flight.
My psychic energy nonetheless dwindles
Fibers of hatred convolve in magnificent spindles
They tighten around my neck never to be released
The universe cast me into dark shadows it seemed
Forever deferred is the dream that I dreamed.
********
I've written various different types of verse over the years, from metered Latin to sensuous sonnets. Here is the first poem that I ever recall writing; I was 7 when I scribbled this down onto a yellow index card in my mother's bedroom. It saw the light of day in my 5th grade poetry collection, A Plethora of Poems.
Not in My Heart, But in My BrainNot in my heart, but in my brain
Is a home for art, science, and pain.
Once no one knew that through the night
There would be something to keep us bright.
*******
Lastly, I'll present one of my favorite modernist poems. I first encountered this poem as referenced in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, whose titular phrase appears in the third line of "The Second Coming." Yeats' language paints a grotesque doomsday picture, the kind of disillusioned darkness which inspired "Resonance from the Shadows."
The Second Coming
W.B. Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
********
