Tâhirü’l-Mevlevî, later known as Tahir Olgun, holds an important place among those who were born and raised in the final period of the Ottoman Empire and spent a long part of their lives during the Republican era, thus serving as a bridge between the two periods. Equipped with titles such as Sufi, Mesnevihan (reciter of the Masnavi), poet, man of letters, historian, writer, and teacher, Tâhirü’l-Mevlevî was one of the well-educated individuals of his time. With the commentary efforts he undertook in the final period of his life, he also earned the title of commentator of the Masnavi, a significant position in the tradition. He was an intellectual who strove to express, sustain, and transmit the values of the civilization to which he belonged during difficult times, not only through education but also through publishing activities, and who produced many exemplary works in this regard.

The 34th book of our Tâhirü’l-Mevlevî collection is his collected poems written in Turkish, which includes 1,114 of his poems. The poems gathered in this book consist of his three Turkish divans and other poems that appeared in various books and journals. The first part of the book contains the Dîvânçe-i Tâhir, which includes the poet's earliest poems; the second part contains Tâhirü’l-Mevlevî’s Second Divan; and the third part contains the Dîvân-ı Tâhirü’l-Mevlevî. In the fourth section, titled Other Poems of Tâhirü’l-Mevlevî, his poems outside of the three aforementioned divans have been included.

The title of the collected poems was chosen as “Oh, Tahir!”, inspired by the following couplet in which the poet addresses himself.

Oh, Tahir! For those intoxicated in that spiritual gathering,
There were goblets of the heart and pitchers of love.

The completion of this work was realized through the efforts and meticulous labor of Mehmet Atalay, whom we know for his translations belonging to our world of culture and civilization and the works he has prepared from Ottoman Turkish.