Statue’s Source Poem by Terence George Craddock (Spectral Images and Images Of Light)

Ataturk was wonderful.
Ataturk was great.

Yet if Ataturk
was so wonderful?
Why did he drink raki
every night so late?

If he had been a
Winston Churchill?
He might have partaken
of brandy and cigars?


Copyright © Terence George Craddock
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881-1938) was a soldier, statesman, reformer, founder and first president (1923-1938) of the Republic of Turkey. He was given the name Ataturk (‘Father of Turks’) by the National Assembly in 1934.