The rhyme and reason behind an Arab tradition

As I watched Barack Obama’s inaugural ceremony in January, I was particularly captivated by Elizabeth Alexander’s poem Praise Song for the Day, recited in honour of America’s first black president.

I was dismayed to learn later that the poem had minimal impact in America, where interest in poetry seems to be receding to the eccentric confines of academia and the literati.

For many of us in the Arab world, this diminishing stature of poetry in American public life is hard to accept, because it undermines a central pillar of our cherished heritage that continues to shape our cultural identity.

Throughout Arab history there is evidence that poetry was an institution in which individuals, groups, governments and leaders found immense fulfilment.

And nowhere in this region has enthusiasm for fostering poetry talents been as conspicuous as in the United Arab Emirates, where the promotion of nabati, traditional Bedouin poetry, is a key facet of the country’s cultural policies.

Last week was poetry week par excellence in the UAE, with an international poetry festival in Dubai, the launch of a poetry academy, the continuing popularity of a poetry-dedicated reality TV show in Abu Dhabi and the opening of a centre for popular poetry in Sharjah.

For many westerners it is perhaps hard to understand the sentimental attachment of Arabs to their poetry, both classical and modern, but a look back at the past shows that poetry was an outstanding feature of social life in pre-Islamic and classical Arab-Islamic times.

In the Arabian tradition, fluency was a central social virtue, and when combined with generosity, courage and honour, it added up to the perfect profile of Arabian chivalry.

Written in rhymed form, the Arabic qasida, or ode, often amounted to a binding policy statement for the poet himself or for the tribe or the leader on whose behalf it was composed.

I remember from high-school books the tragic story of Al Mutanabbi (915-965), that most eminent of Arab poets, who harnessed his genius to promote himself among rival political leaders. Al Mutanabbi, while travelling with his servant from Syria to Iraq on horseback, was intercepted by a band of criminals.

Gripped by panic, he contemplated fleeing into the dark mountains, until his servant reminded him: “Aren’t you the one who said, ‘I’m known to the horses, the night and the wilderness. I’m known to the sword, the spear, the paper and the plume’?” As he turned to face his enemies, Al Mutanabbi told his servant: “You got me killed!”

Of course, the important role of poetry in Arab life has continued in the postcolonial era with the increasing use of poems as tools of national integration, social mobilisation, cultural cohesion and even political dissent. Poets such as Mahmoud Darwish, Nizar Qabbani and Ahmed Fouad Negm have inspired whole generations of Arabs.

As I was studying reaction on the internet to the recent Gaza conflict, I was amazed by hundreds of poetry postings glorifying Palestinians and vilifying Israelis.

Because poetry is the defining component of secular oral Arab traditions, UAE cultural policies that support it have two beneficial effects: they promote a core feature of the country’s national identity, namely the Arabic language, and they also encourage the continuity of our highly cherished values.

The Abu Dhabi Poetry Academy, an initiative by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, is already receiving applications for admission and has entered into academic partnership agreements with two of the UKs top universities.

The Million’s Poet and Prince of Poets television shows have captivated audiences across the region. The Dubai Poetry Festival, which brought together hundreds of poets from around the world, will surely be a valuable platform for popularising nabati, as will the Sharjah Center for Popular Poetry.

But while the power of the spoken word has always galvanised audiences, poetry faces new challenges in the age of the internet and satellite TV.

To preserve it as part of our national identity we must go beyond talent-hunting into the development of a mass culture that easily identifies with this oral communication tradition: in other words, we need not only to discover new talents, but also to cultivate a collective sense of appreciation of what those talents deliver.

And to achieve this, perhaps we should go beyond the media sphere. I see educational institutions as promising target arenas for a new poetry drive.

Muhammad Ayish is a professor of communications at the University of Sharjah