Abstract:

Since 2010, poetry books that extensively incorporate Islamic references and symbols have started to appear more frequently in the literary public in Turkey, along with novels, stories, self-help books, etc. Through effective marketing techniques and social media viral promotion techniques, these well-liked poetry books—which appeal to a wide audience—were widely known in a short amount of time and quickly became bestsellers due to the demand for these products, particularly among young readers. The poems in these books also herald a decadent tendency. This understanding of poetry is quite different in terms of its qualitative level and general orientation from the poetry canon represented by Necip Fazıl Kısakürek, Sezai Karakoç, Nuri Pakdil, Cahit Zarifoğlu, İsmet Özel, Erdem Bayazıt, M. Akif İnan, etc., who have a deep-rooted tradition, a developed qualitative level, a certain maturity and are based on serious Islamic values and sensibilities. This study aims to discuss the general nature of popular Islamic poetry and, in this context, analyse the content universe of Hikmet Anıl Öztekin's Elif Gibi Sevmek 1, whose poems have been widely popular since the 2010s, in terms of the concept of "literary decadence". The study employed the purposive sampling method together with the literature review methodology. The study concludes that although Hikmet Anıl Öztekin's poems seem to have an Islamic content, they literally represent canonical Islamic poetry in terms of form and content, distort religious motifs and concepts by evaluating them from a non-religious framework, and put bestseller status and popularity ahead of the qualitative level.

Keywords: