Dertli Garip, whose real name is Cuma Zeytünlü, is an Alevi-Bektashi folk poet born in 1929 in the village of Kırca in the district of Gümüşhacıköy. Locally he is also known as Derviş Cumayı, Kırcalı Cumayı and Cumayı Ağa. He grew up within the tradition of erens (saintly dervishes) and muhabbet gatherings of the area between Gümüşhacıköy and Merzifon known locally as "Gaziler Ovacığı", and he has drawn attention both for his poems and for his views on this tradition. Caner Işık and Ezgi Aydın Onar, in an article based on their conversations with him between 2005 and 2018, present him as the most important living representative of the generation that calls itself "contemporary dervishes". Since his poems are protected by copyright, only one quatrain is quoted on this page.

His Life

Cuma Zeytünlü was born in Kırca in 1929 but was registered as born in 1933. His father's name was Aşur. According to what he told Işık and Onar, his father died forty days after his birth, and after his mother remarried he grew up among half-siblings. He never went to school and learned to read and write during his military service. He was called up in 1952 and there saw life outside his village for the first time. After his service he lived in Kırca for a while.

In these years he met Mehmet Ali Işık, who served as mosque teacher in the village of Kuzalan four kilometres away and was known locally as an eren. This teacher, who composed poems under the pen name "Derviş Ruhan" and after the founding of the Republic "Işık Ruhan", became Zeytünlü's first guide on the path, and Zeytünlü attended the muhabbet gatherings in Kuzalan whenever he could. In 1969, when Derviş Ruhan moved to Gümüşhacıköy, he too settled in the town and became his guide's neighbour across the street. In Gümüşhacıköy he took part, together with men such as Foto İhsan Aktaş, Pirinççi Yusuf, Manicinin Ali, Çürük Sadık and Ali Uygun, who kept up the Bektashi tradition attached to the Çelebis descended from Hacı Bektaş, in long gatherings where deyiş and their hidden meanings were interpreted together. In time Derviş Ruhan's conversations began to seem bland to him. He came to look critically on practices such as reciting prayers over water and salt, healing and foretelling the future, and he drew away from his guide. Işık and Onar see this break as an example of "contemporary dervishhood", which rejects the miraculous and interprets knowledge in rational terms.

How He Became a Minstrel and His Pen Name

Zeytünlü relates that he began his career by memorising the deyiş of master minstrels: first he sang the deyiş of Yemînî, Vîrânî and Nesîmî, then he made himself a saz and taught himself to play. He says he valued Vîrânî's deyiş above all because Vîrânî spoke the truth without fear; he came to know Âşık Kul Fakır later. The entry in the Dictionary of Names in Turkish Literature, on the other hand, writes that from his early youth he was influenced by his father Aşur Dede and by the zakirs (ritual singers) of the cem in his family circle, and that he took as his guides the great figures of the path whose nefes he learned in the cem, such as Hacı Bektaş Veli, Pir Sultan Abdal, Mir'âtî, Kul Fakır, Kul Himmet, Hüdaî, Feryadî and Balım Sultan. According to the same entry he was strongly influenced by Geykocalı Mehmet Dede, who came to their village from Mecitözü in Çorum, and learned from him the Alevi-Bektashi path, the nefes and the narratives of the Ahl al-Bayt.

He chose the pen name "Dertli Garip" (the sorrowful stranger) himself. Knowing that by tradition the pen name should be given by the master, he considers this an act of disrespect and puts it this way: "Now they say mürşit, they say hoca; that is why the ağa ought to give it. Now since we took it ourselves, we were disrespectful, we took it on our own." Işık and Onar relate the sorrow and estrangement in the pen name to the loneliness the poet had carried since childhood; this interpretation belongs to the researchers, and the poet himself has not explained the meaning of his pen name.

His Poetry

Copyright note: Since Dertli Garip was alive when the sources were published, his poems are under copyright protection and cannot be published on this site as separate pages. Protection lasts until the end of the seventieth year after the poet's death; only one quatrain is quoted on this page.

Dertli Garip is not a prolific poet. Işık and Onar collected and published eleven of his poems. Most are written in lines of 11 syllables in the koşma form and belong to the genres of nefes, nasihatname (poem of counsel), medetname (plea for help), yaratılışname (poem on creation) and praise of the pir; one is dedicated to Sefa Ulusoy, a descendant of Hacı Bektaş. Sorrow, grief, friendship, love, mystical love, Sufism, muhabbet, Hacı Bektaş, and being and non-being are his chief subjects. According to the Dictionary of Names in Turkish Literature, the cassettes and notebooks on which his poems were recorded have been lost, and only seventeen of his early poems have survived; the transience of the world, love, affection, justice, family and friendship are their subjects.

What sets him apart from the dervishes around him is that he interprets his own poems. The first quatrain of one of his poems on creation reads:

Biz yoğu bilmeyiz vardan var olduk
Al ganın içinde bünyeyi kurduk
Hak'tan emir oldu dünyaya geldik
Göndermiş cemalı gören övünsün

In English: We know nothing of non-being, we came into being from what is; within the red blood we built our frame. A command came from God and we came into the world; let those who see the face He has sent rejoice. The poet himself explained these lines to Işık and Onar: one comes into being from what exists, not from nothing; when two beings unite, a world is built within the blood in the womb; it is God who brings the human being into the world. He connects the rest of the poem to the love between man and woman and to musahiplik (ritual companionship). The researchers regard the words "We know nothing of non-being, we came into being from what is" as a summary of his view of the world.

Dertli Garip was born in the village of Kırca in Gümüşhacıköy and has lived in Gümüşhacıköy since 1969; his poetry and his world of thought were shaped entirely within the Bektashi muhabbet circle of Gaziler Ovacığı. For the minstrels of this circle see our article on the minstrel tradition in Amasya. There are two independent sources on him, and both rest on conversations with the poet: the dictionary entry based on Orhan Fatih Kuşdemir's interview of 22 March 2019, and the article by Işık and Onar based on fieldwork spread over thirteen years. The two sources differ on some points. The dictionary names Geykocalı Mehmet Dede as the person who influenced him; the article describes Derviş Ruhan as his first guide and does not mention Geykocalı Mehmet Dede. The dictionary writes that seventeen of his early poems have survived, while the article states that the poet has eleven poems in all. The dictionary says that "he lives in the district of Gümüşhacıköy", and the article likewise reports in 2020 that he was alive. No verified information has been found for the years that followed.

Chronology

1929: Born in the village of Kırca, Gümüşhacıköy; registered as born in 1933.

1952: Called up for military service.

1969: Settles in Gümüşhacıköy, following his guide Derviş Ruhan.

2019: Interviewed by Orhan Fatih Kuşdemir; his entry is published in the Dictionary of Names in Turkish Literature.

2020: Caner Işık and Ezgi Aydın Onar publish their article on his life with eleven of his poems.

Bibliography

Online sources