Poet (b. 1864,
Atkaracalar village / Çankırı – d. 1914). Her
real name was Cevheriye Banu. She was educated in the school in her village.
She was curious about reading and learning, so she was one of the rarely found
women of the period that educated by herself. Her father was the most respected
and rich person in the village, and when he was alive she talked about and
discussed the daily events with the guests who came to the village or to her
house. One of the guests, Aşık Figani, who was a minstrel, affected her the
most. She began her love affair with literature while listening to the
minstrels, and wrote many poems that could have constituted a divan*. However,
she burned most of them for an unknown reason two years before she died.
Therefore, we have only a few of her well-written, beautiful explained, fine
and simple poems now.
Banu Hanım was a woman whose life
passed in a village. She did not marry but was a woman who spread joy to those
around her, who was hopeful and cheerful and was said to be linked to the
Kadiri Religious Sect. It is also said that she was influenced by Mehmet Nuri
Efendi, who was the son of a dervish sheikh and that she wrote poems for him to
whom he replied with poems.
