Feyzî is a poet of unknown identity who is represented by a single ghazal in a poetry notebook compiled in Merzifon, the manuscript known today as the Merzifon Cönkü. Metin Hakverdioğlu, who keeps the cönk in his own library, lists Feyzî in his 2019 article introducing the manuscript among the poets with one poem in aruz, and he gives only the opening couplet of the ghazal. His real name, his dates of birth and death, his home town and his occupation are recorded in no source. Because Feyzî was a very common pen name in Ottoman poetry, it does not seem possible for now to identify the poet of the cönk with any of the better-known poets who used it.

His Place in the Merzifon Cönkü

The Merzifon Cönkü is a manuscript poetry notebook of the long, narrow "calf's tongue" shape, measuring 10.5 x 25 cm, which Hakverdioğlu acquired from a second-hand bookseller who had obtained it in Merzifon. It is written in black ink in a legible ta'lik hand; neither the compiler nor the date of copying is recorded, and the first page and several pages at the end are lost. Judging from its general condition and from the choice of poets, Hakverdioğlu estimates the notebook to be about a hundred years old. It contains 161 poems by 32 poets, 98 of them in aruz (quantitative metre) and 63 in syllabic metre, and the poet given the most room is Tokatlı Nûrî with 36 poems. Hakverdioğlu suggests that the compiler may have been a local poet named Fethî, whose koşmas in the notebook address a Merzifon beauty called Gülfadik, and he believes the cönk took shape in the literary circle of Eyüp Sabrî of Merzifon.

Feyzî's poem is on page 81 of the cönk. In the article's list of poets he appears as "Feyzî 1 aruz", and in the section on the poems a single ghazal is given under the heading "poems written by Feyzî in aruz (1)". In the notebook the ghazal comes directly after a koşma by Âşık Deli and before Bezmî's müseddes. Hakverdioğlu adds no comment on this poet and gives no note on whether the poem is found in any other anthology or edition.

His Connection with Amasya

The only trace linking Feyzî to Amasya is the presence of his poem in this notebook compiled in Merzifon. This link does not show that the poet was from Merzifon or Amasya; it shows that the ghazal was known in the poetry gatherings of Merzifon and that the compiler liked it enough to copy it into his notebook. Hakverdioğlu explains that Merzifon was a halting place on the roads to Çorum, Kastamonu, Sinop and Samsun, that folk poets passed through it in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and that at the invitation of local poets such as Eyüp Sabrî names like Dertli, Emrah, Nûrî and Âşık Ömer took part in the artistic life of the town. Feyzî may have been one of these travellers or one of the town's own poets; the available information does not allow a choice between the two.

His Poetry

Feyzî's only poem in the cönk is a ghazal beginning with the line "Dehr içinde mürşid-i dânâyı bulmaḳdır hüner". The article publishes only its matla, that is, its opening couplet; the complete ghazal remains unpublished in the cönk in Hakverdioğlu's private library, on page 81. The couplet says that the true accomplishment in this world is to find a wise spiritual guide, learn his lesson and reach the essence of meaning, and it carries the air of a Sufi poem of counsel. It fits the fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilâtün fâilün pattern of the remel metre and has the redif (refrain) "bulmakdır hüner". The couplet is given on a separate poem page in the poet's category with its original text, a modern rendering and commentary.

The State of the Sources and Discussion

Many poets are known to have used the pen name Feyzî. One of the entries opened under this name in the Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü belongs to a sixteenth-century divan poet from Manastır; based on Âşık Çelebi's biographical anthology, it relates that he worked as a teacher and preacher in the towns of Rumelia and died in a fire at Mitroviçe. Apart from the shared pen name, there is no evidence that would connect this poet with the Feyzî of the Merzifon Cönkü. Considering that the cönk is about a century old and that most of its poets were nineteenth-century minstrels, it seems more likely that Feyzî too lived in that century and was a folk or dervish-lodge poet who also composed in aruz. This conjecture is drawn only from the general make-up of the cönk and rests on no direct information about the poet.

Once the whole ghazal is published, and especially once the final couplet containing the pen name can be read, more may be said about the poet. For the present, what is known is the existence of a Feyzî named in the Merzifon Cönkü and known by a single ghazal; beyond this record no information about him has been found.

Bibliography

Online sources