Garip movement

The Garip movement, meaning "Strange" in Turkish, was a revolutionary force in 20th-century Turkish literature. Launched in 1941 with the poetry collection Garip by Orhan Veli Kanık, Oktay Rifat, and Melih Cevdet Anday, the movement aimed to break from traditional poetic forms. It discarded conventional meter, rhyme, and language, instead embracing everyday spoken Turkish and folk motifs. This approach, which sought to make poetry accessible to the common people, faced significant opposition but ultimately reshaped Turkish poetry, influencing subsequent generations of writers. Orhan Veli Kanık is considered one of the most innovative poets of this era.12