Poetry, the earliest form of literature, still occupies an important place in the world of literature and culture even in these modern times of digital literacy. Poetry holds a particularly prominent position in Arab culture and heritage, especially in the Gulf region where it lives on in the hearts and minds of its inhabitants and knowledge foundations. To commemorate the enduring tradition of poetry in the Arabian Peninsula, a new festival has arrived to achieve a new dimension: global and cultural connections. This week, poets from the world over are scheduled to express their inner thoughts and feelings at a place where the past meets the present and the sea meets the desert: Dubai. Initiated by the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation, the Dubai International Poetry Festival 2009 will kick off Wednesday at Madinat Jumeirah House of Poetry and other venues in Dubai, featuring poetry recitation evenings, literary and critical discussions, workshops and theatrical performances to raise the holistic profile of poetry. Over the next five years, the festival plans to attract over a thousand internationally-acclaimed poets to present various forms of poetry -- from classical to post-modern. The festival also affirms that poetry is the language of communication between cultures across the world, bringing together poets from the US, Europe, Africa, Turkey, Pakistan, India, China, Russia, South America, and the Arab World. Over the course of the next week, they will aim to represent their collective reality through an expressive flow of human values and language. As the festival is open to the public, it will expose people to the delicacy of taste and pleasurable emotions excited by this most delicate of arts. The purpose of the festival is to “extend the calendar of our activities to multiple locations, so that the public can easily access the elite world of poets,” Ali Al-Shaali, CEO of Dubai International Poetry Festival, was quoted as saying. The festival aims to revive the ancient poetic tradition of the historic Souk Okaz dating back to 500 BC, where literary contests and poetry recitations were held by prominent Arab poets in the pre-Islamic era, and which was revived in Taif, Saudi Arabia, last year. Similarly, the Dubai festival “will act as a forum for poets from around the world, to remove the barriers of borders and speak the language of poetry,” Al-Shaali said. As the nature of ancient souks has changed, so will the rules of the game of contemporary souk literary contests. The festival organization committee has planned to transport this tradition to the modern-day souk – the shopping malls – and host short plays and story recitations reflecting the contemporary human spirit in the poetic tradition. Jamal Bin Huwaireb Al Muhairi, Chairman of the festival organizing committee said, “Souk Okaz effectively brings out the depth of an old culture that merged trade and economic evolution with culture and intellectual development. The concept, in a way, mirrors Dubai's basic fabric as a place where evolution has always remained its ethos. The emirate sees culture as the society's creative response that refines life even while building on human values.” This year's event features prominent contemporary Arab poets like Saudi Prince Badr Bin Abdul Mohsin, Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum and Sheikh Ahmed Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum from the UAE, and Saudi scholar Dr. Aayid Al-Qarni, Abdulrahman Rafi from Bahrain, Farouk Juwaydah and Ahmad Hijazi from Egypt, Hussein Darwish from Syria, Mahmoud Abdulghani from Morocco, and Abdu Wazin from Lebanon, and more. Poets from other parts of the world include Mathew Sweeney from England, Raphael Urweider from Switzerland, Patrizia Cavalli from Italy, Enrique Moya from Venezuela, and Joachim Sartorius and Wolfgang Kubin from Germany. The poetic talent of the sub-continent will be represented by Kamal Vora, Ranjit Hoskote and Imtiaz Dharker from India, and Saba Ekram from Pakistan.
