Orhan Veli Kanık

Orhan Veli Kanık or Orhan Veli (14 April 1914 – 14 November 1950) was a Turkish poet.

Kanık is one of the founders of the Garip Movement together with Oktay Rıfat and Melih Cevdet.

Aiming to fundamentally transform traditional form in Turkish poetry, he introduced colloquialisms into the poetic language.

Besides his poetry, Kanık crammed a large volume of works including essays, articles and translations into just 36 years.

Orhan Veli shunned everything old in order to be able to bring about a new 'taste', refusing to use syllable and aruz meters.

He professed to regarding rhyme primitive, literary rhetoric techniques such as metaphor, simile, hyperbole unnecessary.

Set out "to do away with all tradition, everything that bygone literatures taught", although this desire of Kanık limits the technical possibilities in his poetry, the poet broke new grounds for himself with the themes and personalities he covered and the vocabulary he employed.

He brought the poetic language closer to the spoken language by adopting a plain phraseology.

Orhan Veli Kanık was born at number 9 Çayır Alley on the İshak Ağa Climb in Yalıköy Beykoz, on 14 April 1914.

His father, Mehmet Veli, was the son of Fehmi Bey, a merchant from İzmir, while his mother was Fatma Nigar, Hacı Ahmet Bey's daughter from Beykoz.

According to the population registry, his birth name is Ahmet Orhan, but he came to be known as Orhan Veli after his father before a Surname Law was enacted in Turkey.

His father, Veli Kanık was a clarinetist in the Imperial Military Band at the time of his marriage.

He became a conductor when the band moved to Ankara to become the Presidential Symphony Orchestra after the declaration of Republic in Turkey.

Because of this new position, as well as that of a professor of harmony in Music Teachers' School (later Ankara State Conservatory) he lived in Ankara between the years 1923–1948.

Veli Bey also served for a while as a director at Ankara Radio during this period.

Later on he moved to Istanbul Conservatory to serve as a member of its scientific board, and he also worked as an audio specialist in İstanbul Radio.

Orhan Veli had two younger siblings: journalist Adnan Veli Kanık of Vatan Newspaper and Füruzan Yolyapan.

It appears the poet also had a baby sister named Ayşe Zerrin who died in Ankara at the age of one.

Orhan Veli spent his childhood years in Beykoz, Beşiktaş and Cihangir.

He started at the kindergarten class of Anafartalar Elementary School in Akaretler during the days of Armistice.

After a year however, he was enrolled as a boarding student in Galatasaray High School.

He was circumcised at a mass ceremony organized by Caliph Abdülmecit in the Yıldız Palace when was seven.

In 1925 after completing fourth grade he left Galatasaray High School to move with his mother to Ankara on his father's wish.

There he was enrolled in the Gazi Elementary School.

After a year he moved to Ankara High School for Boys as a boarder.

Kanık suffered several health problems in his childhood.

At five he was badly burnt and had to receive treatment for a prolonged period.

He contracted measles at nine, and scarlet fever when he was seventeen years old.

Kanık's interest in literature began in elementary school years.

A story of his was published in the magazine "Çocuk Dünyası" (Child's World) at this time.

In 1941 his poems embodying these ideas were published in a poetry volume named Garip, released jointly with his friends Oktay Rıfat and Melih Cevdet, which led to the emergence of the Garip movement.

This movement had a huge influence especially between the years 1945–1950 on Republican era Turkish verse.

The Garip poetry is accepted as a touchstone in Turkish verse for its both destructive and constructive effects.

At first Kanık mostly was found peculiar, he was criticized harshly, and heaped upon much opprobrium because of the innovations he introduced to poetry.

Although Orhan Veli's tradition-transgressing works were first received with bemusement and dismay, and were subject to derision and contempt later, they have always aroused interest.

This interest however, eventually led to an increase in understanding of, and affection and admiration for the poet.

Sait Faik Abasıyanık called attention to this aspect of Orhan Veli's public standing identifying him as "a poet who was much scrutinized, at times mocked, at times embraced, then again rejected, to be once again acclaimed; who achieved both great fame and notoriety in his time".

Although he stands out with his Garip period poems, Orhan Veli had eschewed writing poetry of a "single type".

Kanık had been renewing himself and searching without cease throughout his career in literature, a long adventure of poetry in a short life, that consists of different stages.

Oktay Rıfat has explained this by saying: "Orhan lived in his very short lifetime an adventure in poetry equal to a few generations of French poets. Turkish poetry became head to head with European poetry thanks to his pen.", and "A transformation which several generations back to back could maybe achieve, he completed in a few years."