Hayrî is a poet of unknown identity whose name appears only in the Merzifon Cönkü. A single poem in aruz under the pen name Hayrî is recorded in this manuscript poetry notebook introduced by Metin Hakverdioğlu in 2019; the article gives the first four lines of the poem. Nothing is known of the poet's name, home, period or occupation.

His link with Amasya consists in his poem having entered a cönk compiled in Merzifon. This page has been opened on the principle that poets whose identity cannot be established are not to be passed over; below, what the sources say and do not say is shown separately.

Record in the Merzifon Cönkü

The Merzifon Cönkü is a manuscript poetry notebook that Metin Hakverdioğlu obtained from Merzifon for his own library and introduced in the journal idil in 2019. The cönk, in the long narrow "calf's tongue" format and written in ta'lik script, has 112 pages and contains 161 poems by 32 poets. Hakverdioğlu estimates that it is about a hundred years old and thinks that it was compiled by a Merzifon poet from the literary circle of Eyüp Sabrî, most probably Fethî. According to the article, the cönk contains, beside well-known poets, local poets whose names are entirely unknown, and the authors of its poems in aruz are mostly folk poets. This poet's poem is on page 29 of the cönk.

Poetry

According to Hakverdioğlu's count, Hayrî has one poem in aruz in the cönk. The article calls the poem a "dîvânî" and gives its first quatrain; the quatrain begins with the line "Bu reh-i aşk üzere hem-tâyı bulmakdır hüner" and is built on the redif "bulmakdır hüner" (the true skill is to find), in a didactic manner that lists what true skill is. It ends with a thought close to Sufism: finding the kingdom of Darius in the corner of contentment. The original text of the poem, an English rendering and a commentary are published as a separate article in this category.

State of the Sources

Hayrî was a common pen name in the Ottoman period, and there is no clue linking the poem in the cönk to any of the known poets of that name. The article says not a word about the poet; the language and form of the poem are not enough to establish an identity either. Hakverdioğlu's observation that the authors of the poems in aruz in the cönk are mostly folk poets, together with the fact that the poem is written in an aruz form common in folk poetry, suggests that Hayrî too may have been a minstrel who sang in aruz; this is a possibility and the assessment is ours.

In the volumes of Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn's Amasya Tarihi that we searched, no native of Amasya composing poetry under the pen name Hayrî was found. Although the compilation of the cönk in Merzifon suggests that the poet may have belonged to this circle, there is no record of it.

Bibliography

Online sources