George Messo

George Messo (born April 10, 1969) is an expatriate English poet and translator who was born in rural Lincolnshire, near the town of Barton-Upon-Humber. He moved to Trabzon, Turkey, in 1998 and has since lived in Oman and Saudi Arabia. He was the editor of "Near East Review" from 2001 to 2007. Messo is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society.
Poetry.
Messo's poetry collections are "From the Pine Observatory" (2000), "Entrances" (2006), "Hearing Still" (2009) and "Violades & Appledown" (2012). He appeared in the 2006 Stride anthology, "The Allotment: New Lyric Poets", edited by Andy Brown.
"The Economist" has associated Messo with the so-called Istanbul School, which includes the English poet and travel writer John Ash.
Translation.
Messo is a prominent translator of Turkish poetry. He was shortlisted for the Popescu Prize for European poetry translation in 2007 for his versions of İlhan Berk, "A Leaf about to Fall: Selected Poems" (2006) and again in 2011 for "İkinci Yeni: The Turkish Avant-Garde" (2009). Other books include both İlhan Berk's "Madrigals" (2008) and poetic trilogy, "The Book of Things" (2009), two major anthologies "İkinci Yeni: The Turkish Avant-Garde" (2009) and "From This Bridge: Contemporary Turkish Women Poets" (2010), as well as Gonca Özmen's "The Sea Within" (2011) and Birhan Keskin's "& Silk & Love & Flame" (2013). Messo is the editor of the "Turkish Modern Poets Series" for Red Hand Books, and the editor of the bi-lingual journal "Turkish Poetry Today".