Omon Matjon: life and poems

Omon Matjon was born on 14 February 1943 in the village of Bog‘olon, Gurlan district, Khorezm region. His father was head of the village post office, so even when there was no bread at home there were newspapers and magazines; his mother died when Omon was an infant. In third grade he wrote poems and tales, and his first poem appeared on 15 March 1958 in the Yangibozor district newspaper. At sixteen, after school, he applied to the Communications Institute at his father’s wish but did not get in; then he entered the philology faculty of Samarkand University. In military service he read nearly every work in the large library and wrote at least one poem a day; his poems were printed in issue 5 of “Sharq yulduzi” in 1965. His book “Ochiq derazalar” appeared in 1970; he has nearly thirty books in all, among them “Yonayotgan daraxt”, “Seni yaxshi ko‘raman”, “Qush yo‘li” and “Ardaxiva”. He worked as an editor, as editor-in-chief of the magazine “Yoshlik” and director of the “Cho‘lpon” publishing house, and in 1993 received the title People’s Poet of Uzbekistan.