OSMAN ÖZTÜRK

Poet Osman Öztürk was born as a son of a guest worker’s family during the hazelnut harvest time and its tiring return trip from a highland place, accompanied by the humming sounds of the Black Sea’s wild waves in a village of Giresun, which transforms from green to scarlet red color because of the August month’s scorching heat. His soul has been fed by love and longing at a place where the sky and the sea meet with the foggy mountains on the skirt of a unique blueness and greenness. His life has caused his permanent absence from home. His heart laden with longing has given refuge to love, compassion, hope, and joy. Osman Öztürk, who dedicated his life to the children of the world and the peace and happiness of the Turkish people, has been delivering his warm human side, love, longing, and compassion he accumulated throughout years combined with his being a man of law via his lines to our world. He served for many years at various departments of the Directorate General for Security of the Turkish Interior Ministry, holding high level positions. He worked as the Police Chief of Rize, Tunceli and Kırşehir provinces. He was posted at the Turkish embassies in Washington D.C., the United States and Paris L’OCDE, France. He has given lectures at Harvard, Houston South Texas, Ohio State, Kent State, New York Princeton universities in the United States, as well as CUNY-The City University of New York John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and Global Policy Institute, a think-tank organization in this country. He is still occupying the post of the CEO of CSG City Security Group, which is one of the leading private security companies in Turkey. Osman Öztürk conducts projects and works for promoting a secure school environment for the children who are our greatest investment for our future: he initiated “The Secure Schools Project”, a first in Turkey. In addition to his appearance on the columns of many magazines and other media outlets, he published 22 books in various subjects Osman Öztürk’s poetry collections printed earlier in Turkey include “BAKRAÇ / THE BUCKET”, “TAFLAN MEVSİMİ / THE SEASON OF CHERRY LAUREL”, “EKSİK SAYFA / THE MISSING PAGE”, “GÜZ YALNIZLIĞI / THE AUTUMN LONELINESS”, “O KADAR YEŞİLDİN O KADAR MAVİ / YOU VERE MUCH OF THE GREEN AS WELL AS THE BLUE”, and he his poetry books were published in a number of countries. With his book entitled “SOMMERBLAU / YAZ MAVİSİ” was published in Hamburg, Germany in 5 European languages, and his book of “O KADAR YEŞİLDİN O KADAR MAVİ / YOU VERE MUCH OF THE GREEN AS WELL AS THE BLUE” saw its Serbian publication in Belgrade. His other poetry collections called “LA MIA ISOLA-ISLAND-ADA published in Italy and UMUT-HOPE published in Mongolia as well as previously published books in a number of world languages reflect through his lines with great lucidity, the sincerity of the Turkish folk culture by providing the poet’s expressions related to love, loneliness, joy and sorrow, that are all of humane situations to the readers in their mother tongues, Osman Öztürk is a recipient of 2014 Anthology 2 Magical Pens Golden Thought Gold Pen Prize. He has taken part in realization of the 2017 March UNESCO World Poetry Day Festival and Liceo Poetico de Benidorm’s 14. Anniversary Celebration organized at Bahçeşehir University serving on the Organizing Board. He also gave his service to organizing UNESCO World Poetry Day of Istanbul in March 2018 as the Vice Chair of the Organizing Board. After attending the Search Conference for Development of Literary Projects at the Rhodes International Writers and Translators Center in February 2018, Osman Öztürk served as the Organizing Board Member to organize International Olympos Culture and Literature Festival materialized in September 2018.  With his poems translated into 22 languages and many of his lyrics composed, Osman Öztürk has received “Vitruvio Prize 2018” as part of an international poetry competition organized in Italy.