Orhan Veli Kanık

Orhan Veli Kanık (1914–1950) was born in Istanbul and grew up partly in Ankara, where he studied at the Gazi High School before reading philosophy at Istanbul University. With his school friends Oktay Rifat and Melih Cevdet he published the volume Garip ("Strange") in 1941, prefaced by a manifesto that attacked rhyme, metre, conventional poetic imagery and the idea that poetry needed an elevated vocabulary. The three poets became known as the Garip movement, and the book is regarded as a turning point in modern Turkish poetry.

His own poems are built from the speech of the street, the ferry, the café and the neighbourhood: short lines, everyday objects, humour and an unforced tenderness, with Istanbul, the sea and ordinary people as constant subjects. He followed Garip with further collections, among them Vazgeçemediğim (1945), Destan Gibi (1946), Yenisi (1947) and Karşı (1949), and also worked as a translator and essayist. He died in Istanbul in November 1950, aged thirty-six, after an accident; his plain-speech revolution outlived him and shaped almost every Turkish poet who came after.