Kemal Özer was a poet who endeavored to mirror the internal dynamics of life through his works. He carved out a place for himself both in Turkish and world literature with his poetry, children’s books, essays, criticisms, travels, diaries, and translations. The writer started his literary career but then focused on poetry. When writing his books Gül Yordamı (The Way of the Rose), Ölü Bir Yaz (A Dead Summer), and Tutsak Kan (Captive Blood), he did so under the influence of the Second New (in Turkish: İkinci Yeni) movement, which applies free and unique associations, pushes the limits of language and bestows semantic strata to it. Although they may be regarded as indifferent people, the Second New writers deal with social dilemmas in their works concerning individuals. In his early poems or his first three books, Kemal Özer touches on society and its problems identifying them with his inner world. He integrates the feelings, preferences, and troubled and distressed states of mind of people with an attempt to seek a new essence and speech like the other poets of the period.

Having given a decade of a break to poetry after the publication of Tutsak Kan (Captive Blood) in 1963, the poet underwent a new period and search in his literary life. In the creation of his poetry, the poet adopted a holistic approach concerning the selection of words, naming, content, and form. In his poems built in both styles, he transmitted his intended message with a structure weaved of meticulously picked words. 

The present study offers an evaluation of the thematic quality of the poetry of Kemal Özer examining the preferred vocabulary and the frequency of use of words in his books produced according to the Second New movement.

Kemal Özer, Second New, vocabulary