Prince of Poets: A haven for Arab talent
September 17th, 2007One thing that many Arabs complain about is that not many opportunities are given to them, and thus there are not many ways for them to put their talents into good use. Competitions are really a great way to find, reward, and recognize young talented individuals from across the region. Fortunately Abu Dhabi TV, in collaboration with the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, agree, and decided to do something about it. That’s how the “Prince of Poets” television contest was born.
At least 5,000 contestants representing various Arab countries sent their poems to the competition. 35 of them were chosen. For about 10 weeks, it took place in front of a live audience, and 5 established poets served as the jury/critics. The contestants did everything from reciting their works to improvising poems on a variety of different subjects. That definitely requires some serious talent, and many of them pulled it off beautifully.
The number of worldwide viewers numbered in millions. People cheered on as one poet moved us after the other. This is not like any usual contest, such as “Superstar” or other popularity competitions, this was something much deeper, much more important.
In a recent article, Arab news notes:
The contest is considered a milestone in helping revive classical Arabic poetry. For Arabs, poetry is considered the ultimate art form that has the capability of producing profound emotions in its listeners. As a result Arabs have called poetry “the lawful magic” (“sihr halal”). Classical Arabic poetry dates back to pre-Islamic eras.
The much deserving winner is Emirati poet Karim Maato. But one of my favorites is Palestinian poet Tamim Al-Bargouthi. This man’s words can put you to tears:
One can only hope that the Princes of Poets will be a continuing event, to celebrate one of our most important historical, literary and cultural traditions.
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The winner is old. And I would have liked to see MORE WOMEN! Grr.
Shhh. 44 is not old! It’s … aging.
I wish for the next phase, they can have something like this for kids within innercities. I mean the winner of this, it’s great that he is more recognized now, but he leads a Writers’ Union in the UAE. His work has been published before. There are too many talented people who never get the chance to be heard, young ones, and those are the ones we should fish out.
And for God’s sake put some Bahrainis in there.
Bahrainis you say orrrrr…. Indians! Mushtaq Hussain is an Indian guy who lived in Saudi Arabia for most of his life and participated in this contest. Look at what he says to Gulf News:
http://archive.gulfnews.com/nation/Heritage_and_Culture/10142557.html
Yay for creativity.
Haha, nice!
It was a good show indeed, unfortunately, I couldn’t get around watching until the it was in its final stages!
The marketing wasn’t the best, if it wasn’t for other blogs I wouldn’t even know it was going on. Their official website isn’t even showing up on the main pages of Google, showing a basic of lack of SEO/marketing skills and most of the information available was made accessible by viewers who recorded and shared these things on YouTube or their own personal blogs. To their defense, the creators did not expect this show to be as successful and with such a widespread viewership, which explains the lack of preparations.