An Analysis of Mehmet Zeki Akdağ's Poetry

Abstract

Mehmet Zeki Akdağ, who published his first poem in 1947, has an adventure, lasting over fifty years, concerning writing poems. The poet, recognized as "Today's Karacaoğlan," has seven poetry books titled Kırkikindi, Dar Saat, Uzunhava, Önce Şiir Vardı, Yağmura Duran Bulut, Boşa Çiğnemedim Yalan Dünyayı, and Gecenin Gözleri. The poet is nourished by folk poetry and folk culture in the poems predominated by themes like love, love of country and nation, Anatolia, love of homeland, and faith. The folk songs and Turkish are among the sources that inspire the poet who adores folk songs and Turkish. Akdağ also writes poems in the form of free verse while he uses syllabic meter mostly. Akdağ, who employs living Turkish in his poems, also draws attention because of his utilization from the possibilities of Turkish expressions. In this study, the poems in his books titled Uzunhava and Boşa Çiğnemedim Yalan Dünyayı were subjected to an analyze under two titles as love/affection and love of the country and the nation. Akdağ gives places to some of the poems in his poetry book titled Uzunhava, published in 1991, once again in his book titled Boşa Çiğnemedim Yalan Dünyayı, published in 2002. Although the themes of love for the country and the nation remain at the forefront in his poems in poetry book titled Uzunhava, it is observed that the love/affection sense is mostly touched in the book titled Boşa Çiğnemedim Yalan Dünyayı. Akdağ presents an attitude that continually voices his love in his poems, where love and affection themes are predominated. While in these poems, which display the individual sensitivity of the poet, he seeks for “beautiful,” in other words, saying, his national sensibility implies an ideological tone in his poems predominated by the love of the country and the nation.