Set out "to do away with all tradition, everything that bygone literatures taught", although this desire of Kanık limits the technical possibilities in his poetry, the poet broke new grounds for himself with the themes and personalities he covered and the vocabulary he employed.
Although Orhan Veli's tradition-transgressing works were first received with bemusement and dismay, and were subject to derision and contempt later, they have always aroused interest.
Kanık had been renewing himself and searching without cease throughout his career in literature, a long adventure of poetry in a short life, that consists of different stages.
Oktay Rıfat has explained this by saying: "Orhan lived in his very short lifetime an adventure in poetry equal to a few generations of French poets.
Orhan Veli Kanık was born at number 9 Çayır Alley on the İshak Ağa Climb in Yalıköy Beykoz, on 14 April 1914.
Later on he moved to Istanbul Conservatory to serve as a member of its scientific board, and he also worked as an audio specialist in İstanbul Radio.
In Kanık's first year of high school Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar was his teacher and an early mentor providing advice and guidance.
The poet published a magazine named "Sesimiz" (Our Voice) with his friends Oktay Rıfat and Melih Cevdet during his high school years.
This stage in the artist's life was when he learned and gained an appreciation of the rules and harmony of the traditional aruz meter, and wrote his first poems.
He had parts in several public performances, in the play "Aktör Kin" starring Raşit Rıza, as "Üstad-ı Sanî" in Ahmet Vefik Paşa's Moliere adaptation "Zor Nikâh" (Le Mariage forcé) staged by Ercüment Behzat Lav in the Ankara Community Center, and as the "father" in Maurice Maeterlinck's "Monna Vanna".
In 1936 Orhan Veli's poems "Oaristys", "Ebabil", "Eldorado", "Düşüncelerimin Başucunda" were published in the "Varlık" magazine upon Nahid Sırrı Örik's suggestion.
In the magazine Orhan Veli and his friends were introduced with these words: "Varlık is boosting its cadre of poets with new and powerful young pens.
In our future issues he will bespeak better the new breath he and his friends Oktay Rıfat, Melih Cedet and Mehmet Ali Sel are bringing to our poetry."
Kanık, Horozcu and Anday were adopting a radical stance rejecting both the syllabist tradition and Ahmet Haşim's poetry that preceded them, and Nazım Hikmet's social-realist verse.
All the surrounding debate popularized the line to the point that, according to Nurullah Ataç, "it was in all the ferries, trams, coffeehouses", indeed becoming an idiomatic expression.
Another line by the poet that has been at least as popular in daily language is "Bir de rakı şişesinde balık olsam" (..one more thing, would that I were a fish in a bottle of rakı), which Orhan Veli had written specifically to satirize Ahmet Haşim's famous line "Göllerde bu dem bir kamış olsam (Would that in this moment I were a cane of reed in the lakes)".
With the departure of Hasan Âli Yücel as the minister of education following the 1946 elections, the Translations Office he had founded lost its prominence in the ministry.
In later years he would point to the discomfort of the oppressive atmosphere that had taken over the ministry with the incoming minister Reşat Şemsettin Sirer as the reason for his resignation.
He started writing essays and reviews in the newspapers "Hür" and "Zincirli Hürriyet" published by Mehmet Ali Aybar.
Orhan Veli was the publisher and the editor in chief, which got him deeply involved with the financial health of the publication, at one point even causing him to sell his coat to cover costs.
In the same time period Orhan Veli, Oktay Rıfat and Melih Cevdet campaigned for Nazım Hikmet's release from prison, holding a three-day hunger strike.
He was visiting Ankara for a couple of weeks when on 10 November 1950 he fell down a hole in the street dug by the municipality works, hurt seemingly lightly.