Refik Durbaş's life, art and works

Refik Durbaş(1944-2018), one of the important figures of socialist realist Turkish poetry after 1960, not only contributed numerous works to Turkish literature with his versatile and original art but also was one of the leading intellectuals of contemporary Turkish literature due to his long career in journalism. In our study, Refik Durbaş's life, perspective on art, and works have been examined, and analyses regarding the poet's art have been conducted. In this context, in the first part of our study consisting of four sections, the focus is on the poet's biography, emphasizing significant individuals and events that influenced his life. In the second part, the concrete effects of of these individuals and events on his art are determined. In the following section, after identifying and classifying the poet's works, analyses are conducted on these works. In the fourth and final part, thematic and structural elements in Refik Durbaş's poems are examined, and the formation and development processes of these thematic and structural elements in Durbaş's art are investigated. Adhering to the socialist realist poetry understanding, the poet, who always avoids the language of slogans in his poems, preserves poetry aesthetics, not only presenting human scenes from his era in the verses he writes with the possibilities of modern poetry and sometimes inspired by traditional poetry but also bringing a new breath to contemporary Turkish poetry.