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Nâzım Hikmet's poems always leaked out of the prison walls before they gained their last forms, even while they were being written. He also sent his poems to a couple of people - his wife Piraye, one of his trustworthy friends, a lawyer - but only after they were completed... But his friends, those interested, and a number of prison officials who were excessively fond of poetry used to copy whatever they got hold of, no matter completed or not. Then those poems would circulate by copying, and thus, would change in each copy.
It is true that Nâzım Hikmet himself also corrected his poems after their completion - he used to remove, add or change some parts. But the real chaos emerged from the fact that those uncompleted poems changed many hands, and from the carelessness of those who copied the poems. Even, those false copies were memorised. Even, they were published here and there... Particularly those Turkish books that were published in Bulgaria... For the terrible faults in those versions, to which one must object vehemently, some, by saying that, "it seems that Nâzım Hikmet had edited them in this way," displayed inconsiderateness and poetrylessness and reached to the peak of 'tastelessness as critics'. And those who learned by rote, without even thinking that they may have memorised the wrong versions, came to me and told that "I have known all his poetry by heart since twenty-five years, they are publishing them erroneously."
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