DEMELER

This book, compiled for the 90th birthday of pioneer poet Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt, is a collection of 30 variations on her poems, mostly written between 1998 and 1999 using a Remington Rand typewriter.

Deme is an archaic word that was once introduced as a substitute for the word poetry, but it did not catch on, according to word-collection (derleme) dictionaries. It stands for one of the verse types of folk poetry and Sufi poetry, poems sung with the bağlama during cem. Additionally, word-collection dictionaries include other meanings such as word, phrase, subject, ballad, elegy, lament, stuttering (in the Bolvadin dialect), mute and pulse (in the Ermenek dialect). An interjection denoting incredulity or surprise… It also takes such forms as demece and dimece. Philosophers once used the word “deme” for the word “concept” to promote the purification of Turkish language during the Reform period.