It has been claimed that Ottoman poets were detached from life, indifferent to their environment, and even that they were isolated in their own world. Many academic studies in recent years show that such claims are arbitrary generalizations and do not reflect the truth; on the contrary, the studies indicate that the Ottoman poets were never disconnected from social life, the environment they live in, the beliefs and cultural values of the society toward which they have a sense of belonging, and especially they were making use of the elements related to social life on a large scale mostly within the frame of various imaginations, metaphors and thoughts. Ottoman poets used the features of the society they live, lifestyles, every object they encounter in daily life in their poems, and they used them as a tool to express their feelings and thoughts. It is clear in the “Divan” of Osman Nevres, one of the 19th-century poets, that the poet was quite concerned with everything around him, almost all of the material and spiritual things were reflected in his poems with various considerations.

The rise of new poetry in the nineteenth century, when important reforms took place in the political and social spheres of the Ottoman Empire, could not put an end to the long-lasting Ottoman poetry and the new poetry was not a complete breaking away from the old poetry. In this respect, the Ottoman poetry in the 19th century was not much different from the previous centuries in terms of the number of poets who partially continued the old poetry tradition. But from the second half of the 19th century onward, we see some changes with regard to the quest for finding appropriate ways of separations and differentiations from literary genres during the process of modernization. One of the poets who grew up in the process of renewal in the 19th century is Osman Nevres who was characterised as mediocre in this period. The poet, who was also known as Nevres-i Cedid and used the pseudonym Nevres in his poems, was reported to have been born in Chios in 1236 / 1820-21, and there is limited information about his family. Nevres, the child of a Greek-born family, was bought by Süleyman Fâik Efendi who was a servant of Ali Rıza Pasha, when he was still a child and after being educated for a while, he was presented to the Pasha and learned Persian, poetry, construction and literary composition under the patronage of the pasha. At first, Nevres who started his career as a clerk was appointed to Baghdad Provincial Clerkship. Throughout his life, he was assigned to various places, and died on the 6th of February, 1876; he was buried in Karaca Ahmed Cemetery, Istanbul. Nevres wrote his poems in Turkish, Persian and Arabic; like many other Ottoman poets, he dealt with many subjects such as love, lover, nature, religion, mysticism, mythological elements, rose-warbler image. It has been detected that Nevres Divan is very rich in terms of material elements such as from apparel to ornamentation; from means of transport to refreshments; from battle equipment to musical instruments, from architecture to writing tools. This study has mainly been formed in relation to that examination of the aforementioned writing tools in Osman Nevres’ Divan. By virtue of being a poet, it was tried to be seen what dreams and imaginations Osman Nevres used by these instruments in his poems. We tried to shed light on the ways in which Osman Nevres, by virtue of being a poet, made use of these writing tools in regard to his dreams and imaginations. In the light of these examinations, we came up with many elements of writing such as (especially) pencil, gizlik, notebook, index, der-kenar, kitâb, Quran, telegram, letter, ruz-nâme, seal, ink, paper, ruler, pergâr, tebâşir, divân, firman, leaf, levh, line in the poems with a variety of dream and imagination-based contexts. These elements are listed in alphabetical order, and some exemplary couplets from the Divan are presented after a brief explanation. Of all the elements of writing, the poet used the pen most frequently and he likened the pen to a Turkish crescent, a reed flute, a horse, a sword, çeşme-i hayvan and he used various combinations of pen. We also see in these poems that he included the original uses that he represented the ink of the pen as milk; the pen as a chest full of milk.

Not only he touched upon the traditional ways of communication such a carrier pigeon but also he mentioned some of the new inventions of the era, like telegraph. It is clear that the poet was truely an observer of the time he lived through; and he was making use of the latest innovations that were absent in his poems beforehand.

Some of the innovations of the period such as telegraph and ferry can be seen as an indicator of the poet’s being an observer of his period and not being away from social life. In this study, the elements of writing in Osman Nevres’ poems have been included on large scale. No doubt, his co-existing identities as a clerk and a poet had a certain influence on the prevalence of writing elements in his poems.