Poet. (b. 21
January 1967, Harmanpınar,Bozkır, Konya). He also used the pen names A. Can
Yakın ve İshak Buhar, N. Yerli, Yusuf Kilkoğlu. He attended
primary school in Harmanpınar and graduated from Bozkır High School and İstanbul
University, Faculty of Literature, Department of Turcology (1990). He did his
master at the same university, and participated to PhD works. He entered the Turkish
Radio and Television Corporation's İstanbul Television as cameraman in 1992.
He worked as a manager in the Culture- Drama Programs in the Turkey Radio and
Television Corporation's Channel 2. He became director of the Culture
Department at the same corporation. He founded and managed the review Kaşgar with his friends in
1997 (38
Issue). Kaşgar played an important role in terms of
re-making popular the reviews originated from poets which were densely
disappeared. Erdem gained the respect, love and appreciation of general culture
and poetry mediums with his calm and creative character and his comprehensive
and leading attitude to new generations.
His first poem
was published in the review Diriliş
for which he worked in his school years. In addition to the review Diriliş, his poems and articles were
published in
the reviews Dergâh, Kaşgar, Düşler, Nar, Göçebe, Gösteri, Hece, Kitap-lık,
Yasakmeyve etc.
and the newspaper Yeni Şafak. He
published most of his poetic works and essays in the review Kaşgar. His book Yarım
Ağaçlar (Half-Trees) became the first book that won the 2002 Cahit
Zarifoğlu Poetry Award. Ömer Erdem has an effective role on the orientation of
new poetry in his generation with his first book. He attracted attention
especially with his special emphasis on the language, his thought about
composing the poetry with culture and existence, his effort to see and analyze
the Turkish poetry in a historical perspective and his meticulous and fresh
approaches to the poetic perception and originality. It is appraised that the
classical perception in his recent poems is as a kind of new modernity. It
could be said that there are both the integrity of perception and the
sustainable evolution, change and expansion from his first book. His last
published book Yarım Ağaçlar
(Half-Trees) can be seen also the final attack of what he wrote till that day
as well as a book of a new transformation.
This book was attracted attention with its open structure of reading and
was considered as a touchstone of Ömer Erdem Poetry. The reality of his
perception as well as his pure way of speaking, his imaginable simplicity which
is open to the salient and creative opportunity of the language, the metaphysic
calls for time, geography and individual as well as wisdom can clearly be seen
in all of his poems.
WORKS (Poetry):
Dünyaya Sarkıtılan İpler (The Ropes
Hanged Down to the World, 1996), Mesafesi
Kadar İnleyen Rüzgâr ( The Wind which Moans as its Distance, 1997), Yitirişler (The Losings, 1998), Yarım Ağaçlar (Half-Trees, 2001).
