Orhan Veli Kanık (born on April 13, 1914 in Istanbul, died on November 14, 1950) was a Turkish poet. Orhan Veli, together with Oktay Rifat and Melih Cevdet, founded the Garip Movement. 13 April is the 103rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (104th in leap years). ... 1914 (MCMXIV) is a common year starting on Thursday. ... Shows the Location of the Province Istanbul The Sultan Ahmed Mosque, Istanbul Istanbul (Turkish: Ä°stanbul) (a Turkish contraction of Greek εις την πολιν into the city, the former Constantinople, Κωνσταντινούπολις) is the largest city in Turkey, and arguably the most important. ... November 14 is the 318th day of the year (319th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 47 days remaining. ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Poets are authors of poems, or of other forms of poetry such as dramatic verse. ... Garip (Turkish: strange or peculiar) was a group of Turkish poets. ...

 Orhan Veli's father was a conductor of the Presidential Symphony Orchestra. His younger brother, Adnan Veli, was a well known jounalist whose prison memoirs, (he was incarcerated on political charges)"Mahpushane Cesmesi (The Prison Fountain)" was published in 1952. He studied in Istanbul University's philosophy Department for only one year before leaving school in 1935. He was employed by the Ministry of Education as a translator from 1945 to 1947. The remaining three years of his life he worked as a freelance translator and journalist. 

He is known for advocating a poetry without excessive stylistic elements and adjectives, and prefers a style closer to free-verse. He is known for his unique voice, and depth of emotion underlying the seemingly easy-coming nature of his verse. His poetry is highly admired by the public as well as in academic circles.

Here is one of his most famous poems, translated by Talat Sait Halman:

JUST FOR THE HELL OF IT

All the pretty woman thought

The poems I wrote on love

Were meant for them.

And I always felt badly

About having written them

Just for the hell of it.

He fell into a ditch in Ankara on November 14, 1950 while intoxicated. He was rushed to the hospital, fell into a coma and died before midnight. He was 36, but already a legend in his lifetime. He was the enfant terrible of Turkish poetry, the man who had written the notorious line, " I just wish I were a fish in a bottle of booze." Attending physicians must have felt that his wish had been granted for they first assumed that death was the result of "poisoning due to intoxication." Later, word got around that the poet had fallen into a ditch in Ankara a few days before and had been complaining about an unbearable headache ever since. As a result, a number of people concluded he had suffered a concussion. A few intimates also recalled that the poet had never fully recovered from a serious automobile accident in 1939. Then he had been in a coma for 20 days.

Officially it was a cerebral hemorrhage which ended the life of Turkey's most talked-about, most colorful poet. But alcohol could lay claim to being the unofficial cause, for the fall into the ditch in Ankara had followed a bout of heavy drinking.

Works

• Garip (Together with Oktay Rifat and Melih Cevdet, 1941)
• Garip (1945)
• Vazgeçemediğim (1945)
• Destan Gibi (1946)
• Yenisi (1947)
• Karşı (1949)
• Collected Poems (1951, 1975)