Sabri Altınel

Poet and translator (B. 1925, Susurluk / Balıkesir - D. 18 October 1985, Istanbul). His full name is Mustafa Sabri Altınel. He graduated from Balıkesir High School (1945) and Istanbul University Faculty of Literature Turkish Language and Literature Department (1949). He worked as literature teacher in Istanbul Saint Joseph and Saint Benoit High Schools. He worked as a journalist for a while and then he went to France (1959). He was retired in 1983. He died because of lung cancer, his tomb is in Feriköy.

His first poem (At Koşusu), was published in Alkım magazine (Balıkesir, 1937). Later he wrote in Kaynak, Genç Nesil, Sanat ve Edebiyat, Edebiyat Dünyası, Yağmur ve Toprak, Yeryüzü, Yelken, Yeni Ufuklar, Yücel, Ataç, Soyut, Somut, Yazko Edebiyat magazines. He preferred to publish his unpublished poems as a book. He is a socialist poet from 1940 generation.

 As he wrote in his book İnsanın Değeri, his perspective about poem is “a way of understanding life”. These poems in this book show some signs from Garip with being not so poetical. But they are more realistic than the Garipçiler. Later, he wrote sorrowful dramas in which the stories were not clear.

“As it is in Kıraç’s, (also in his later works) pastoral environments fill the place of social environment. Honesty, he is good at indicating the relations between village people and nature. But he doesn’t indicate their social relations. Their properties and class relations which shape their living styles are not mentioned. In other words, it is enough to give missing reality. Necessarily, this restricts poet with a detective reality, prevent him to find a dialectic view.” (Asım Bezirci)

WORKS:

POETRY: İnsanın Değeri (1955), Kıraçlar (1959), Zamanın Yüreği (1982), Şiirler (1983), Kentin Küçük Sokağı (1995), Seçme Şiirler (1997).

TRANSLATION: Seçme Şiirler  (from Lorca, 1962), Seçilmiş Şiirler – Cante Jonde Şiiri (from Lorca).

REFERENCE:  Asım Bezirci / Papirüs (Aralık 1969) - On Şair On Şiir (1971), Demir Özlü / Sabri Altınel’in Şiiri (Somut, Nisan 1980), Adnan Benk / Şiirce Yaşamanın Ozanı: Sabri Altınel (Çağdaş Eleştiri, Nisan 1982), Ramis Dara / Zamanın Yüreği (Yazko Edebiyat, Şubat 1983), O. Senemoğlu / Bilinçli Coşku (Çağdaş Eleştiri, Şubat 1985), Selim İleri / Seni Çok Özledim (1986), Memet Fuat Bengü / Sabri Altınel (derleme, 1997), Asım Bezirci / Güle Dil Verenler (1998), Behçet Necatigil / Edebiyatımızda İsimler Sözlüğü (18. bas. 1999), Şükran Kurdakul / Şairler ve Yazarlar Sözlüğü (gen. 6. bas. 1999), TBE Ansiklopedisi (2001), İhsan Işık / Türkiye Yazarlar Ansiklopedisi (2001, 2004) - Resimli ve Metin Örnekli Türkiye Edebiyatçılar ve Kültür Adamları Ansiklopedisi (2006, gen. 2. bas. 2007), İbrahim Oluklu / Seni Yazarak (Balıkesir, 2003), Cevat Çapan – Demir Özlü – Konur Ertop – Ataol Behramoğlu – Şavkar Altınel / Özel Bölüm: Sessiz Çığlık (Adam Sanat, Mayıs 2005).