Can a television program change the life of a poet? “In the Arab world, of course,” says Ali bin Tamim, jury of the Prince of Poets, a poetry competition broadcast on Abu Dhabi television and reminiscent of musical programs like American Idol. Experts share their opinions, and the public can vote for their favorites from home. The prize: one million dirhams –about 254,000 euros–, a cloak, a ring and fame. The majority of winners have had no choice but to get used to the camera flashes and there are many poets from the Arab world who follow in their footsteps and move from their countries to the Emirati capital to try their luck because here, unlike Many other countries have a very profitable way to make your dream come true.
“But the most important thing of all is something intangible and it is called prestige. This is what will allow him to dedicate himself to poetry, if that is what he wants. You have the opportunity and living off verses is not easy almost anywhere in the world. It would be interesting if you took advantage of it. Of course, you have to work hard, nothing is given away here and the monetary prizes, over time, run out,” recalls Tamim from the Abu Dhabi Book Fair, which is being held this week in the capital of the United Arab Emirates. and that poetry is very present in various stands, many of them dedicated to the little ones, not only because they know that they are the future, but because the authorities seem to be very aware that oil will not last a lifetime, so Investment in education is high, as pointed out by several publishers and booksellers.
Although the reward is succulent, it must be said that there are others that are higher and whose protagonists also become idols of the masses. The Million’s Poet program, also produced by the Pyramedia group, one of the most powerful in the country, is currently the literary prize with the best prize in the world, with the winner pocketing 1,170,000 euros. It is followed by the Planeta Prize (1 million euros) and the Nobel Prize for Literature (11 million Swedish crowns, which in exchange is close to 946,000 euros).
Its broadcast, which “exceeds football”, as it attracts an average of 70 million viewers per episode, is broadcast to all Arab countries and this latest edition had Mohammed Al Madawi as the winner just a few weeks ago. Although if one name has crossed borders, it is that of the Saudi Hissa Hilal, the first woman to reach the final. Her “feat,” as many media outlets described it as such, encouraged other poets to sign up for the contest and sparked the interest of filmmakers Andreas Wolff and Stefanie Brockhaus, who told their story in the documentary The Poetess (2017), presented at the Amsterdam Documentary Film Festival (IDFA).
Hilal’s most famous and international poem, created during the contest, is titled The Chaos of the Fatwas, and criticizes the “barbaric clerics” who run his country, condemning the violence they exercise and the restrictions on rights due to their fundamentalist stance. . His political stance has led him to receive multiple death threats. Something that she hasn’t quite gotten used to, but that doesn’t stop her from her activism. “My poetry destroys and seriously destroys,” Hilal warned in her first television appearance, dressed in a niqab, which over time led many to baptize her as “the faceless poet.” Over the weeks, in addition to attacking terrorism and extremism, she also did the same with patriarchy: “When you isolate women, you isolate the soul of the entire society.”
Although there is still a long way to go, more and more women are exposing their poems to the public and not just their loved ones, and are trying to make a career out of it. “Poetry concerns us all. Therefore, we all have a voice. Whenever I can, I reclaim this art, and I also do it in my latest book, in which I often introduce verses that have been in our culture for years, but that many people are unaware of,” advances the Egyptian writer Reem Bassiouney hours after collecting the Sheikh Zayed literature award, one of the most important in the Arab world, for his novel Al Halwani: The Fatimid Trilogy, which he hopes will be translated into Spanish, as already happened with his best-selling Professor Hana (Alba Editorial).
Beyond genres, the question is: where does this furor for poetry and making a spectacle of it come from? “Arab culture is based on poetry and we cannot ignore something like that. That is the main basis. It is worth adding that the government is especially interested in promoting this practice,” starting with the recently created Abu Dhabi Poetry Festival, which brought together more than 1,000 poets in October, according to Ali Al Kaabi, president of the jury of another notable poetic award, the Kanz Al Jeel, promoted by the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Center to honor poetry pieces, folkloric studies and research of Nabati poetry, also known as the poetry of the people, as it usually reflects everyday reality. This type of poetry is also used in Million’s Poet.
Theirs is not a television program, but it does have something of a show at its core. One of the six categories included in the Kanz Al Jeel is illustrating a poem, so artists from all over the world can participate and opt for the million and a half dirhams that are distributed among the winners. A value that does not rule out that it ends up growing in the long term, since “we have had three editions and we do not stop growing. People from more and more countries are participating, but it is not something that surprises us. Here we take care of the poet and we want him not to lack anything. If we run out of poetry, we will lose a part of ourselves and our culture. It is a risk that we cannot afford.”
