How Many Oaths Were Sworn About Me? (Book)

How Many Oaths Were Sworn About Me? (Hakkımda Kaç Yemin Edilmiştir?) is the debut poetry collection by Mert Mevlüt Gökçe. Published in October 2022 as part of Dergâh Publication’s Turkish Literature series, the work is 64 pages long. Gökçe’s first collection is built on youth experiences and the establishment of a personal voice.

The work, which begins with the poem that gives the book its name, contains themes of nature, belonging, memory, individual alienation, and symbolic bond(s):

• The Relationship Between Nature and Humanity: Identification with nature and the burdens this brings are felt in lines such as, "I'm taking the blame for the wind / it taught the leaves to go."
• Belonging and Alienation: The relationship with family ties and roots is conveyed with phrases like "in your grandmother's garden"; this sentiment contains both warmth and an element of distance.
• Conscious Difference: The lines "They commit suicide by not being like their peers / At most I'll resign from my civil service" highlight a sense of uniqueness, detachment from society, or nonconformity.
• Silence and the Conflict of Belief: The distance between faith and an individual's stance is emphasized with the line, "They believe in God unconditionally."
• Emotional Transfer: The phrase "At a decibel that even angels can't hear" aims for a compositional transfer of emotion through words.

Gökçe’s language is based on short and dense poetic structures, prioritizing the experiential, archetypal, and symbolic. The syntax is straightforward, and the imagery tools are consistent. The poems are crafted like embroidery with a modern sensibility, carrying both layers of individual emotion and a sense of collective consciousness.