METİN ALTIOK’UN ŞİİRLERİNDE OTOBİYOGRAFİK İZLER

Metin Altıok—who was just one of the many Turkish writers to lose his life during the Madımak Hotel Fire (Sivas Massacre)—had entered the world of letters and art during his university years. He had earned himself a spot within Turkish literature first his art exhibitions, followed by his first book of poetry. He— in placing great care on language in every sense of the world—had viewed his own poetry as being a part of the “second wave” within contemporary Turkish literature, and in doing so had laced traces of himself within lines. Altıok came was born and had had spent his youth—until university—in Bergama, Izmir. He studied and got married in Ankara; and from 1979 onwards, had worked as a teacher in Bingöl, and later Karaman. He lost his life in 1993. The first part of this paper briefly examines Altıok's life. The second section, “Metin Altıok ve Şiir” (Metin Altıok and Poetry) takes a look at the wordsmith's stances on poetry and art. This study, which is centred on the autobiographical traces nestled within Altıok's poetry, first discusses the influence that his beloved wife and daughter had had on his work. The focus is then shifted towards probing the echo within his poems of the longing and loneliness that he had suffered at the hands of the Anatolian plains in being so very far away from home. The final section peers into how Altıok's hand tremor brought about by years of alcoholism, followed by the Madımak Incident had also ultimately left their marks upon his verse.