The Book That Found Me
Some books are companions. Others are confrontations. In the Dark: The Soulful Shadows of Nightrun – Attempts at Dark Poetry by Derya Yalımcan felt like something far stranger—it didn’t ask to be read; it chose me. It arrived not with fanfare but with quiet insistence, like a dream you can’t quite remember but wake up aching from. From the first poem, I knew I wasn’t just stepping into someone else’s world—I was being called into my own shadows. This wasn’t casual reading. This was soul work.
Where the Sacred Meets the Shadow
As I moved deeper into the collection, I began to feel like I was walking through an ancient cathedral—one that had been abandoned and overgrown, yet still humming with the echoes of prayer. Yalımcan dares to blur the lines between what we worship and what we fear. There’s something raw and almost dangerous in the way she invokes historical and mythical figures—not as distant archetypes, but as living memories. A defiant “Renegade” faces the Inquisition, and I felt her breath on my neck. Blood stains Clontarf’s shores as Brian Boru rides through the mist—and I was there, barefoot in the fog. These moments aren’t just poetic—they’re cinematic. They burn, linger, and refuse to be forgotten.
Not Just Words—An Invocation
What took me by surprise wasn’t just the intensity—it was the clarity. Yalımcan’s voice is sharp, precise, and completely unapologetic. Every poem is a deliberate step into darkness, not to frighten, but to illuminate. This is poetry as invocation—calling things into presence, not performance. There’s a spiritual pulse here, but it’s not tame. It questions doctrine, challenges tradition, and whispers secrets in the language of the lost. The lines don’t just speak—they demand to be heard, to be felt. I found myself reading aloud, again and again, letting the weight of each syllable press against the silence of my room.
The Unexpected Tenderness
But just when I thought I had this book figured out—as a bold, intellectual force—it surprised me. In the quieter corners, Nightrun is heartbreakingly tender. There are moments where mythology folds into memory, and mortality becomes intimate rather than abstract. In her tribute to Yeats, I felt not just admiration, but a kind of sacred kinship—a shared reverence for language and longing. These poems don’t just challenge—they care. They carry grief, love, nostalgia, and vulnerability in ways that feel deeply human. The defiance never overshadows the devotion—it walks beside it, hand in hand.
For Readers Who Don’t Look Away
This is not a book for the passive or the comfortable. It’s for those of us who read in the margins, who stay up too late thinking about the spaces between words. If you’re someone who sees beauty in decay, who feels more alive in twilight than under fluorescent lights, Nightrun will speak your language. It doesn’t offer resolution, but it does offer reckoning. And in today’s world, that might be the more honest gift. These poems don’t tie things up—they pull things open. They ask us to confront what we’ve buried and remember what we’ve silenced.
More Than a Book—A Spell
Published by BoD and available under ISBN 9783759721914, Nightrun by Derya Yalımcan isn’t just a poetry collection—it’s a living thing. It pulses with its own rhythm, one that doesn’t align with the ticking of clocks but with the turning of seasons, the hush of old ruins, and the spaces between stars. I didn’t just finish this book—I emerged from it changed. It’s a spell disguised as ink, a confession whispered in the language of myth and marrow.
And once I opened it, the night began to speak—and now, I find myself listening differently, even in daylight.Find Nightrun here: https://buchshop.bod.de/nightrun-derya-yalimcan-9783759721914
If you seek the thrill of the racetrack and the roar of high-performance engines, Sophie’s got you covered. Buckle up and join her in the fast lane, where excitement meets cutting-edge auto tech.
