Oktay Rifat Horozcu, better known as Oktay Rifat, was a Turkish writer and playwright, and one of the forefront poets of modern Turkish poetry since the late 1930s.
He was the founder of the Garip movement, together with Orhan Veli and Melih Cevdet. Oktay Rifat had a great influence on modern Turkish poetry, standing outside traditional poetic conventions and creating a new movement.
Oktay Rifat was born on 10 June 1914 in the city of Trabzon, son of poet and linguist Samih Rifat Horozcu, who was also governor of Trabzon. Oktay Rifat started writing poetry as a high school student, and his first poems were published between 1936 and 1944 in the literature journal Varlik (Existence).
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