Babtain Foundation honors talented Arab poets, winners
KUWAIT: Under the auspices of HH the Amir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Abdulaziz Saud Al-Babtain Culture Foundation launched its 18th round to reward talented Arab poets and critics, who won the foundation’s 17th and 18th awards, besides celebrating the publication of Al-Babtain Encyclopedia of Arabic Poets in the Age of States and Emirates, alongside special acclamation to two poets: Ibn Sana’a Almulk and Ibn Maleek Alhamawi.
Winners of the 17th round award are: Moustafa Ikrima (Syria); Ahmed Al-Zo’bi (Jordan) and Yusuf Wighlaisi (Algeria); Abdulaziz Al-Hammami (Tunisia); Abdullah Al-Shorbajy (Egypt); Kawthar Al-Zain (Tunisia); Nijood Al-Qadi (Yemen); Ibaa Al-Khateeb (Syria) and Ali Hassan Ibrahim (Bahrain). Also, the winners of the 18th round award are Abdulaziz Khoja (Saudi Arabia); Ahmed Darwish (Egypt); Moustafa Rajwan (Morocco); Rawdha Al-Hajj (Sudan); Abdullah Abou Shmais (Jordan); Alaa Al-Qatrawi (Palestine) and Zaher Habeeb (Yemen).
From Sunday, March 19, 2023 until Tuesday, March 21, the United Nations is marking World Poetry Day at Al-Babtain Library for Arabic Poetry. Amir’s Representative and Minister of Information and Culture Abdulrahman Al-Mutairi, who is also state minister for youth affairs, and President of the foundation Abdulaziz Al-Babtain, alongside a group of international literati, scholars, thinkers and politicians, were present during the celebration to reward the winners.
Mutairi opened the ceremony by warmly welcoming the audience in their second home, Kuwait, and delivered HH the Amir’s greetings to all attendees. “It is an honor to greet you on behalf of His Highness Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, under whose auspices this celebration is happening,” Mutairi said. He also delivered HH the Amir’s wishes for this foundation’s efforts and Abdulaziz Saud Al-Babtain award to continue its pioneering role in serving Arab culture and embracing Arabic poetry and safeguarding its heritage. Mutairi added this gathering is in response to the foundation’s invitation to shed light on its major role in serving Arab culture, which started from a state that has always taken care of this culture.
Babtain greeted the attendees and expressed his gratefulness and appreciation to HH the Amir. He also highlighted that the Amirs of Kuwait have always supported the foundation’s work since its existence, which reflects their recognition of Arab culture’s value. After expressing his warmest appreciation to the Amirs of Kuwait for their ongoing support, Babtain said for more than a decade and a lot of work and effort by more than 100 scholars including researchers, scholars and academics, in addition to 500 others who worked on gathering encyclopedic material from Arab and non-Arab countries, we have finally succeeded in bringing out the encyclopedia in 25 volumes.
These volumes include translations and poems related to more than 10,000 poets, whose biographies were hidden in around 200 resources. “I have dreamt and still dream of presenting to the Arabic library an inclusive poetic encyclopedia that draws the features of Arabic poetry and reveals its characteristics and directions through the ages. This was the spark behind starting this encyclopedia project, as it started with the AlBabtain encyclopedia for contemporary Arab poets in 1990. Its first edition was published after five years and the process remained until the third edition was published in 2014 in nine volumes, which included around 2,500 poets. Today, we are working on preparing the fourth edition in order to publish it next year,” he said.
Dr Abdulaziz Khoja, a diplomat and poet, who won the foundation’s appreciation award, said he was very happy to win the award for having contributed to the enrichment of the movement of Arabic poetry. He lauded the foundation as being one of the Arab world’s most significant cultural organizations, which, since its inception, has shouldered responsibility for safeguarding Arabic cultural and civilization heritage.
Representing the winners, Rawdha Al-Haj, a Sudanese poet and media figure, delivered a poem of her volume, which won the foundation’s best poetic volume award. She highly commended the cultural organization for having worked over 30 years to safeguard and promote Arabic poetry and poets. Rawdha Al-Haj and Jordanian poet Abdullah Ameen Abu Shemis won the best volume and poem awards respectively.
The foundation’s best poetic volume for young people went to Palestinian poet Alaa Al-Qatrawi, while the best poem prize went to Zaher Habeeb of Yemen. The best poetic criticism book prize went to both Moroccan critic Mustafa Rajwan and critic Dr Ahmad Darwish of Egypt. Saudi poet Dr Abdulaziz Khoja has won the foundation’s Appreciation Award for this year’s edition. This year’s edition has attracted widescale Arab participation involving more than 826 participants from the Arab world vying for branches of the foundation’s awards.