Özlem Aliyazıcıoğlu Yeni’s poetry book Fragile can be read as the literary and visual extension of her multifaceted artistic practice. Published by Banliyö Kitap, the 146-page work explores migration, distance, love, longing, belonging, loneliness and the effort to rebuild oneself.
Yeni is an internationally recognised visual artist with more than twenty-five years of professional experience. After studying painting, she pursued master’s and doctoral degrees in stage design and worked as an academic for many years. Throughout her career, she has taken on roles as a visual artist, curator, art director, stage designer and costume designer, exhibiting her work in Türkiye, Japan, Australia, and the USA.
The Main Gallery, which she founded in Adelaide, reflects her desire not only to create art but also to establish a cultural platform bringing artists from different backgrounds together.
A Life Moving Through Poetry
At the heart of Fragile is a life divided between two continents. Written during the author’s years in Australia, the poems carry both the bond with the country and the past left behind and the effort to establish a new existence in an unfamiliar geography.
The experience of migration in Fragile is therefore not limited to a physical relocation. The book is primarily concerned with how much a person changes while moving from one country to another, and how the traces of a former self continue to be carried into a new life.
For this reason, Fragile is not simply a collection of poems. It is a work that brings poetry and visual expression together, inviting the reader to follow not only the words but also the silences and spaces between them.
Away from Home, Closer to the Self
Images of home, roads, doors, roots, the sky, the sea, islands and journeys appear repeatedly throughout the book. These images are not merely decorative elements; they become symbolic points of passage that help us understand the speaker’s inner world.
“Home” is sometimes a place of refuge, and at other times a closed box carrying an unfinished story. The “journey”, meanwhile, represents more than travelling from one place to another. It becomes a process of transformation in which the individual must choose themselves again at every crossroads.
In the world of Fragile, the human being often encounters an inner stranger while trying to belong somewhere. The tension between two countries, two languages and two cultures can be felt directly or indirectly throughout many of the poems.
The Poetry of Love, Longing and Distance
Love in Özlem Aliyazıcıoğlu Yeni’s poems is not presented as a one-dimensional emotion. Nourished by distance, love sometimes takes the form of a letter, an echo or a light appearing in the sky. It forms one of the most emotionally powerful threads running through the book.
The poems contain not only the desire for reunion but also waiting, remembering and incompleteness. Rather than relying on grand or elaborate statements, Yeni builds her poetry through short lines and unexpected images.
This simplicity does not diminish the emotional intensity of the poems. On the contrary, it allows the reader to establish a stronger connection between the text and their own experiences. A longing expressed in only a few words can sometimes leave behind a feeling too intense for an entire story to contain.
Spaces That Speak Across the Pages
One of the most striking features of Fragile is the visual arrangement of its poems. At times, the lines move forward within a more traditional poetic structure; at other times, they are scattered across the page, divided into individual words or surrounded by generous areas of white space.
This choice changes the way the book is read. The reader does not simply read the poem; they also experience the distance between the words, the silence of the page and the space surrounding the text.
In Fragile, emptiness does not signify absence. Instead, the empty spaces become areas where the poems can breathe. The decision to suggest certain emotions rather than state them directly strengthens the book’s expressive power.
A Silent Narrative Built by Lines
The drawings accompanying the poems do not function merely as illustrative material. Rather, they create a second narrative that shares the same emotional space as the texts.
Sometimes a single line, a shape or a simple mark completes what the poem leaves unsaid. Having worked closely with visual arts for many years, Yeni does not use the drawings to depict the poems literally. Instead, she expands their emotional landscape.
In this sense, Fragile approaches the idea of visual poetry. On some pages, the text takes centre stage; on others, the empty spaces and lines begin to speak. The balance between what is said and what remains silent is one of the book’s greatest strengths.
From Fragility to Rebirth
As the book progresses, a distinct sense of lightness begins to emerge. While distance, vulnerability and the search for the self dominate the earlier sections, acceptance, transformation and rebirth become increasingly prominent towards the end.
The poet reminds us that one may sometimes need to become lost in order to find oneself, and that letting go of one’s burdens begins with recognising them. At this point, the title Fragile comes to represent not only vulnerability but also an openness to change.
Fragility is not presented as weakness. Instead, it becomes a sensitive threshold through which a person can establish contact with their own inner self.
Poetry, Line and Silence
Fragile is a book that constructs poetry not only through words, but also through lines, rhythm, page design and silence. Drawing on Özlem Aliyazıcıoğlu Yeni’s artistic background, the book carries an intimacy that may resonate with anyone who has migrated, left something behind, waited for someone, felt estranged from themselves or had to begin again.
By treating fragility not as a weakness but as the starting point of transformation, Fragile becomes a simple, visual and emotionally charged record of a long journey into the self.
