Love Death

Ahmet Taner Özer’s poetry book titled Aşk Ölüm / Aşk-ı Derun has been released.

Ahmet Taner Özer has chosen to distill into poetry all that he has felt, thought, read, listened to, learned, written, drawn, and noted over many years. Aiming to convey nearly 60 poems in one book to the hearts of readers, Ahmet Taner Özer summarizes the justification for this effort as follows:

“In a realm where creatures clinging to the earth on all fours can leave their saddles as inheritance, where is it written in the virtue of being human to boast about the existence of objects that even first-degree relatives will quickly forget? In our eternal journey, we must leave behind a basket of anonymous shared benefits for all people we have lived with, from which they will continue to benefit after us. The only thing left behind should not be our corpse, carried on the shoulders of friends…”

Ebru artist Hikmet Barutçugil, who has been working on ebru for nearly fifty years and also successfully practices other traditional arts such as calligraphy, illumination, miniature, and bookbinding, states the following in his foreword to the book:

 “Mevlana says: ‘The purpose is to learn a lesson from the story, not to tell you a mere tale. God forbid, what I tell are not dry stories. Reflect. This is our current state, yours and mine.’ In this book, from the pen of my dear friend, you will recall death, which is the most instructive principle for life, and you will find Love…”

Born in Trabzon in 1971, Ahmet Taner Özer graduated from Trabzon High School and then from Marmara University, Faculty of Business Administration, Finance Department. He has worked as a manager in Turkey's most important companies in the printing industry for 25 years. Özer, who was the first in the industry to implement facsimiles on aherli handmade paper, has served as an exhibition curator and culture and art consultant in many national and international projects. A pioneer in the widespread adoption of "facsimile" in Turkey, Özer has numerous patented products for the printing industry. Contributing to the industry by participating in and supporting globally impactful projects, Özer has designed book projects for many important individuals and institutions. Currently working as a manager in one of Turkey's leading printing houses, Özer continues to prepare and implement new projects with "passion".