Ottoman Anatolia sees the flowering of aşık (Âşık) folk minstrels, wandering poet-musicians improvising saz-accompanied verse drawing on Turkish, Persian, and Sufi folklore. These poets (Köroğlu, Karacaoğlan, Dadaloğlu) compose doğaçlama (improvised) quatrains, blending tribal legends, mountain spirit beliefs (cın, peri), romantic exile motifs, and political resistance. The tradition thrives among rural Turkoman, Kurdish, and Azeri communities.

Aşık poems provided essential resources for modern Turkish poetry's folk revival (1920s-1940s), influencing poets like Âşık Veysel (blind minstrel) and Necdet Turhan. The tradition's 'folk poetry' movement countered Ottoman Divan poetry's Persianate conventions, forging a national vernacular verse based on oral formulas. Contemporary poets (Cemal Süreya) incorporate aşık's deyiş (religious folk verse) structures into experimental poetry, proving how Sufi folklore generates enduring poetic models for secular modernists.