Born and raised in Istanbul, Hande Yeltekin Meissner came to Californiain 1996. She published 100 poems in her first Turkish book "Well of Dreams". One-thousand copies were sold and the profits were donated to a charity for homeless children. With over 500 poems written since the age of 12, this is the first English translation of her published and unpublished poetry.
Hande lives with her husband Ken in Costa Mesa, California. In the future, they plan to retire and move to a seaside town in Turkey.
Hande Yeltekin Meissner’s poetry illustrates life in unique personal manner. Since she is far from her homeland, Hande often writes about her favorite city, Istanbul. "Poetry is one of the best ways of describing everything," says Hande.
She also mentions about her experience in preparing her first English book. She says: "I worried about a poem loosing its effect in translation, but I discovered that every word has its own meaning. You can't make words rhyme, you can only hope that what you feel will be written with harmony."
Sweet Measure of Despair is now available at all major online bookstores such as, www.barnesandnoble.com, www.amazon.com, www.booksamillion.com, etc.
In her letter to PTAA, Hande emphasized that, like she did 7 years ago with her first book published in Turkey, she plans to donate the proceedings from her latest book to a charity in Turkey.
Here is an excerpt from one of Hande's poems:
Remember the innocence,
shameless confidence of my existence
We met life on its own terms
We washed our wounds with salt water
Under the judgmental eyes of strangers
Darkness throttles me
Came to life, death, love and faith
Had to face all of it...
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