İsmet Özel

He won the Writers' Union Turkey's Essay Award (1985) and Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral Award (1995) with his book Taşları Yemek Yasak (It Is Prohibited to Eat the Stones).

In the book called Celladıma Gülümserken (When I Smile at My Executioner, 1984), the main borders of İsmet Özel's poetic world clarified, he collected all his poems in the book Erbain / Kırk Yılın Şiirleri (Erbain - The Poems of 40 Years, 1987).

In addition to putting his understanding of poetry, the book called Şiir Okuma Kılavuzu (The Handbook of Reading a Poem, 1980) also points an still being a research field: the contemporary position of Turkish Poetry.

Both in these works and his first essay book called Üç Mesele (In Three Problems: Technology, Civilization and Alienation) (1978), he defended that Muslims had to be dependent to the Islamic sources itself. He claimed that this is the most realistic and rightful effort in the conditions that is far and away from Islamic Sources.

The most notable of these is undoubtedly the column he had in newspapers of Yeni Devir (1977–79 and 1981–82), beginning from 1981-82 / 1985 partially in the Millî Gazete, moreover also in the Yeni Şafak newspaper.

Another following twenty years, he claimed that he broke the ties with the Islamic Media. His third work called Cinayetler Kitabı (The Book of Murders, 1975) was a perfect example of his quality in writing poems which it emphasizes the dedication to his early works.

Özel published Halkın Dostları magazine with Ataol Behramoğlu. Özel's songs of freedom derived its content from socialism but their structure and symbolism reflected the tastes of the Second New generation movement in Turkish poetry. In the 1970s, Özel developed a mystic and Islamist view which shocked his leftist audience.

In 1970, he published Halkın Dostları review with Ataol Behramoğlu. In fact, Ataol Behramoğlu purified his poetry by leaving out crude propaganda and naive didacticism. İsmet Özel, perhaps the most talented of the group, turned to Islam for inspiration, but preserved the revolutionary bravura of his Marxist days. In following years, İsmet Özel experienced great changes in his political and philosophical approaches, and dedicated himself to the Islamic thought.

Özel has aimed at a new awareness of social responsibilities. In the 1970s, he adopted a mystical view of life without losing the strength of expression and inventiveness which he had evolved during his socialist period.

Özel, who published his early poems in 1963, became salient with densely using images and his meticulous effort to choose words. He collected his early poems in the book called Geceleyin Bir Koşu (A Run in the Night, 1966), in which he searches the truth of being human. His attributions about gathering the innovations and experimental sides of Turkish Poetry with social realism and his success to realize it caused to his second book called Evet İsyan (Yes, Rebel, 1969) made big echoes.

Except newspaper works, starting from 1960, he published his poems and works in Devinim 60, Papirüs, Yeni Dergi, Şiir Sanatı, Halkın Dostları (1964–71), Diriliş, Mavera, Gösteri, etc.

İsmet Özel (born 19 September 1944, in Kayseri) is a Turkish poet and writer.