Poet (b. March
1910, İstanbul - d. 29 January 1957). He attended primary and elementary school
as a boarder at
His first poem,
Sönen Gözler (Fading Eyes), was
published in the review Servet-i Fünûn –
Uyanış, in 1927 when he was seventeen. He was a most faithful man of literature
to poetry and among the defenders of the movement “Yedi Meşale” (Seven
Torches). During the first years of the “Seven Torches” period, he wrote
pessimistic and desperate poems. Therefore, he frequently employed the words
such as torment, grudge, gravedigger and bat. His marriage to his uncle's
daughter, who was also a neuropath and the wounds from the early death of his
mother, might have been the reasons of the pessimism in his poetry in this
period. In the following period, he wrote more hopeful poems. He was as
addicted to the art of poetry as a lover is. He summarized his understanding of
innovation in poetry as: “Innovation in every kind of art stems from the man’s
need for novelty. If this emergence comes naturally, the new thing of today is
as beautiful as the new things of the past and it will still be beautiful when
it gets old. We, those who appreciate art, among all these beautiful things,
can run from one of these to another when we are tired, and if our eyes are
dazzled by the clarity of classicism, we can embark on the indefiniteness of
symbolism.” After the closure of the review Meşale,
his poems and articles were published in the arts pages of the newspaper Milliyet, and in the reviews İçtihad, Ağaç, Yücel and in Varlık, from the first publication (15
July 1933). There are four basic themes in his poetry: death, love, love of nature
and mankind. He also handles the extensions of these themes, such as the love
of life, the love of children, etc. The general style of his poetry is
tranquil. His friendship with Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı presented Turkish literature
with Ziya’ya Mektuplar (Letters
to Ziya). There have been several thesis presented related to him. Alkım
Publications re-published all his works in 2003.
WORKS:
POETRY: Sebil ve Güvercinler (Fountain and
Pigeons, 1943), Geçen Zaman (Time
Passing By, 1947), Nefes Almak (Breathing,
1957), Geçen Zaman - Nefes Almak (Time
Passing By- Breathing, all poems of his three books, 1974).
SHORT STORY: Mesut İnsanlar Fotoğrafhanesi (House of
Photographs of Happy People, 1952),
Değişen İstanbul (Changing İstanbul, 1959). REFERENCE: Munis Faik Ozansoy / Mes’ut İnsanlar Fotoğrafhanesi (Hisar, Temmuz 1952), Mehmet Kaplan / Cumhuriyet Devri Türk Şiiri (1973, s. 404-412), Cemal Süreya / Şapkam Dolu Çiçekle (1976), Mustafa Miyasoğlu / Ziya Osman Saba (1987), TDE Ansiklopedisi (c. 7, 1990), Behçet Necatigil / Edebiyatımızda İsimler Sözlüğü (18. bas. 1999), Şükran Kurdakul / Şairler ve Yazarlar Sözlüğü (gen. 6. bas. 1999), TBE Ansiklopedisi (2001), Ziya Osman Saba Sevgisi- Ziya Osman’a Dair Yazılar (der. Mehmet Nuri Yardım, 2004).