This study examines how İsmet İnönü, the second President of the Republic of Turkey, was represented in Turkish poetry between 1923 and 1960, from the perspective of subject–power relations. It analyzes the transformation of praise and criticism directed at İnönü in relation to historical turning points and political changes, using Foucault’s conceptual framework on subjectivity and mechanisms of power. The methodology, based on close reading and critical discourse analysis, was applied to a selection of poems drawn from various periodicals, newspapers, and poetry collections of the period. The analysis reveals that İnönü was depicted as a secondary and complementary figure during Atatürk’s era, but after Atatürk’s death, he became the central object of laudatory representation. With the economic difficulties of World War II, intra-party divisions within the Republican People’s Party, and the rise of the Democrat Party, İnönü increasingly became the target of critical, satirical, and ironic poetic discourse. This transformation demonstrates that poetic subjects not only serve aesthetic purposes but also reflect social and political realities, restructuring power relations in the process. Consequently, the study highlights how political subjectivity is reconstituted through literary texts and makes an original contribution to the literature on political representation in Turkish poetry.

İsmet İnönü, republican era, Turkish poetry, subject–power relations.