120 x 170 mm, 80 pages, Black & white printing, Perfect bound, Softcover, Ed. of 500, 2021

Equal parts lyric and performative, “A Promenade at Home” is a meticulous cataloging of possession in all its forms. Revisiting her childhood home in Istanbul in spirit, poet Sevinç Çalhanoğlu overhears a conversation between her mother and the sentient house, their dialogue a cantillated litany of decorations past and present. Meanwhile, her mother bustles about with broom and bleach, seeking to disrupt the settling of dust and malefic hexes in rooms that arrange themselves into a theatrical set. As Sevinç proceeds to piece together painful memories of coming of age in this middle-class, Muslim household, she reckons with an interior’s ability to occupy its occupants—specifically her mother and, through osmosis and inheritance, the poet-daughter—and explores how a home touched by grief can become a haunted space.

With cathartic intent, Sevinç excavates the microhistorical, retrieving memories long muffled by carpet in an effort to assuage the white noise of trauma. “A Promenade at Home” is comprised of two self-contained poetic works, each illustrated by Sevinç with its own of set of art: the titular “A Promenade at Home,” a weave of poems, fragments, and performative dialogue, arranged together with abstract monochromatic watercolors; and “Melancholia: An Inventory,” a prose-poetry hybrid of domestic diary and institutional guided tour, illustrated with drawings of household artifacts.

Translated from the Turkish by Ayça Akarsu and Cansen Mavituna. Aquarelle cover painting by Ürün Ünal.

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