Poet
(b. 26 September 1910, Çorum - d. 13 June 1936). Known with the pen name Mazlum
Kenan, Ömer Mazlum was a Köstekçioğulları, one of the Çorum’s oldest families.
After completing primary education in 1923, he attended the Mıntaka Agricultural
Operational School. He completed the Village Teachers’ Courses in Ankara in
1927 and worked as a teacher in the Doğla and Karapınar villages in Çorum
(1928-29). He stayed at a sanatorium for a while for the treatment of his
tuberculosis, which he contracted at Sivas Teacher Training School. His
treatment continued in different hospitals between 1933 and 1936. He died of
tuberculosis at Çorum Memleket Hospital when he was only 26.
Mazlum
Kenan, who was known for his sensitive personality, wrote his poems at the
hospitals he stayed in (sanatoriums in Burgazada and Heybeliada and at
Cerrahpaşa Hospital). When his poems were published six years after his death,
they attracted huge attention from young poets and were collected in a book
with the title Zakkum Çiçekleri
(Flowers of Oleander) in 1947. According to Abdullah Rıza Ergüven, “The first of our most lyrical poets is
probably Mazlum Kenan.”