The sixth season of the Arabic poetry competition Prince of Poets began on Wednesday night. It has been eight years since the start of this competition, which is screened every two years over the course of ten weeks.
The poets competing this year are:
- Usama Ghawji, from Jordan
- Abdallah Abu Bakr, from Jordan
- Hassan Abdeh Tamili, from Saudi Arabia
- Yasin Hamid Hazkir, from Morocco
- Niveen Aziz Teena, from Palestina
- Manahil Fathi, from Sudan
- Khalid Bashir, from Sudan
- Diya Al Kilani, from Egypt
- Haydar Al Abdullah from Saudi Arabia
- Mufrih Al Shakiki, from Saudi Arabia
- Louai Ahmed, from Jordan
- Mush’al Al Sarmi, from Oman
- Musab Al Bayrutiah, from Syria
- Muhammad Weld Idum, Mauritania
- Isam Khalifa, from Egypt
- Nadhir Al Samidi, from Iraq
Among the four who competed in the first episode, the Iraqi Al Samidi was the one who tackled the pressing subject of terrorism and extremism most fully, although the judges were less than impressed with the quality of his poetic language – one of the judges describing him as using poetry as a camera rather than as a searching light. Another judge agreed, saying that the poem stopped at insultingly describing the character of the takfiri extremist, rather than analysing this character.
“Over the past five seasons, millions of viewers have had the chance to follow 50 poetry evenings aired live on TV, with all the dreams, ambitions, funny situations as well as critical and happy moments,” says director of the Poetry Academy at Abu Dhabi’s Cultural Programmes and Heritage Festivals Committee, Sultan Al Amimi.
Arab Hyphen 