Orhan Veli Kanik

Orhan Veli Kanık was one of the most innovative poets in 20th-century Turkish literature. He was born on 14 April 1914 in Beykoz, Istanbul, to a family of civil servants. His father, Mehmet Veli, was a poet and a translator, and his mother, Fatma Nigar, was a housewife. He had a brother, Adnan Veli, and a sister, İnci Pars. He attended Galatasaray High School and Istanbul University, where he studied literature. He worked as a teaching assistant and a postal clerk before devoting himself to poetry. Orhan Veli was the founder of the Garip movement, along with his friends Oktay Rıfat and Melih Cevdet. The movement aimed to break away from the traditional forms and language of Turkish poetry and to introduce colloquialisms, humor, irony, and simplicity. The movement was named after their joint poetry collection, Garip, which was published in 1941 and caused a sensation in the literary circles. Orhan Veli's poems were influenced by his love for Istanbul, his personal experiences, his political views, and his admiration for Western poets such as Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, and William Carlos Williams. Orhan Veli was also a prolific writer of essays, articles, and translations. He translated works by Edgar Allan Poe, Anton Chekhov, François Villon, and Paul Valéry, among others. He also edited several literary magazines, such as Yaprak, Varlık, and Yeditepe. He was a prominent figure in the Turkish cultural scene and had many friends and admirers, such as Sait Faik Abasıyanık, Nazım Hikmet, Sabahattin Ali, and Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu. Orhan Veli died on 14 November 1950, at the age of 36, from an intracranial aneurysm. He had fallen into a manhole a few days earlier and hit his head, which may have caused the rupture of a blood vessel in his brain. He was buried in Aşiyan Cemetery, near the Bosphorus, where a statue of him stands today. His poems have been translated into many languages and have inspired generations of Turkish poets. He is widely regarded as one of the most original and influential voices in modern Turkish literature.