Kenan Behzat Sharpe is an academic, journalist, and current postdoctoral fellow with Keyman Modern Turkish Studies at Northwestern University. He is currently writing his first book: Rockers and Radicals in Anatolia: Turkish Psychedelic Rock and the World 1960s.
Kenan Behzat Sharpe
Contributions
When “Ottoman” Was an Insult: Turkish Modernist Poets and their Critics
In 1954, Turkish poet Cemal Süreya published an unusual poem in one of the influential literary magazines of the period. “Gül” [Rose] describes a person’s psychic state as he wanders through a disorienting urban landscape. With its use of decontextualized imagery and striking reversals, this poem scandalized Turkey’s mid-century literary scene: