ÂŞIK ÖMER

Folk poet (b. ?., Gözleve village / Konya - d. 1707, İstanbul). He received education at Muslim Theology School. He spoke Arabian and Persian and was also interested in Turkish classical music and played the drum. He wrote poems on the campaigns in Austria-Hungary and Russia during the reign of Sultan Ahmet II. He wrote prayer recitations, 5-line stanzas, eulogies, odes and lyric poems, besides syllabic poems. His Divan* was published both in handwriting and lithograph.

He was defined as the most productive (with 1500 poems) and most famous poet of all folk poets throughout history. His discourse and understanding of art created a tradition that influenced hundreds of poets until the early 20th century. Among the text in his Divan*, the most well-known copy is the one that was edited by Ayvansaraylı Hüseyin Efendi (1781) and located at the Mevlana Museum Library in Konya. Around 750 of his poems were collected in the book Âşık Ömer / Hayatı ve Şiirleri (Aşık Ömer, His Life and Poems, 1953) by Sadettin Nüzhet Ergun.