Synkroniciti is thrilled to welcome Turkish playwright, writer and poet Burcu Seyben with “Dwellers of Non-place,” a complex, philosophical prose poem about how people, especially family, interact with each other and their environments. It is divided into six sections. Ghost details an eerie childhood memory of her grandparent’s farm, while Wanderer explores being estranged from home and being haunted by childhood memories of home. Actor describes a character-building exercise for actors and contrasts it with an acrimonious and pivotal encounter between her mother and grandmother. Philosopher delves into the work of French anthropologist Marc Augé, Non-Places, which sets up the central idea of the poem. “Unlike anthropological spaces where people come together, make bonds, socialize, and belong, non-places remain unsocial spaces of transience where one remains disconnected and anonymous. Like hotel rooms and airports where people merely happen to occupy the same space at the same time. They are path-crossers. They don’t communicate.” Unlike Augé, Burcu focuses not on those non-places, but on those path-crossers and how they impact life in and around themselves. She wonders how we become path-crossers and if this creates permanent damage that we pass down to our children. Mother recounts the way her mother’s surgery suspended their relationship while she healed and Messenger the reconnecting of that relationship, which is subtly altered in a way that reminds Burcu of her grandmother. “Everything is back to “our” normal. But I feel. It is as if. Something or someone is listening to us. In the non-place where Mother must have trapped her. Can she be the one forever listening to our silence and cries?” The vulnerability and relatability of this poem are met by an expansive intellect and emotional maturity that takes us to a new and unique understanding of humanity.
Read “Dwellers of Non-place” in Synkroniciti’s “Haunting” issue, Vol. 6, No. 4, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Burcu Seyben is an academic, writer, and theater director from Türkiye. Since 2017, she has been rebuilding her life and pursuing her writing in the United States. Her creative nonfiction works have been published in The RavensPerch and Door is a Jar Literary Magazine. Her play, The American Letter, was also selected for the Pitch-Your-Play Showcase at the Mid-America Theatre Conference. Seyben enjoys discovering new works, focusing particularly on themes of women, language, and exile. The intersection of these three themes is her favorite.