The activities of the University Poet Competition, organized by the Ministry of Culture, represented by Qatar Poetry Center “Diwan Al Arab” in cooperation with Qatar University and civil and military universities and colleges, starts today and will continue until next March at Qatar University.
The competition consists of four stages, the first of which will be held today, Monday, and the final one on March 1st. This competition involves the two categories of poetry, Nabati and Classica, and is open to students of universities and civil and military colleges, both citizens and residents.
The competition prizes amount to 180,000 Qatari riyals for classical and Nabati poetry, where the winner will receive 50,000 riyals, the runner-up will receive 25,000 riyals, while the holder of the third position will receive 15,000 riyals, in each category. This competition translates the keenness to enrich the poetic movement in the State of Qatar, among students of universities and military and civil colleges. It also reflects Qatar Poetry Center’s commitment to supporting poetic talents and creating the appropriate literary atmosphere for poets to enrich the arena with their artistic endeavors.
Explaining the competition protocol, Mr. Shabib bin Arar Al Nuaimi, Director of Qatar Poetry Center, said: “The competition is based on the societal, cultural, and literary values and is targeted at consolidating these values in the poets’ creativity and poetic production as well as activating their role in community issues in general”. Al-Nuaimi added that the competition’s mechanism depends on jury’s evaluation of candidates’ required poems, leading up to qualifying 24 candidates. From this stage onwards, candidates will present both a prepared poem and improvised verses until the final stage. This mechanism was developed in order to refine poetic talents and highlight the competition’s outcomes to reach the highest standard of creativity and artistic stardom. He pointed out that a specific topic will be specified for each of the four stages of the competition, leading up in the last stage to the qualification of 6 poets, 3 from Nabati and 3 from Classical, who will compete for the first three positions.
Candidates will be required to present both poems and improvised verses in the closing ceremony, whereby the first, second and third positions for the two categories of the competition will be determined. He pointed out that one of the most important goals of the competition is to discover young poetic talents and then support them by raising their cultural and knowledge standards, as well as enriching the poetic landscape with young poets, creating the appropriate environment for them to flourish and activating their role in society. It is noteworthy that recently “Diwan Al-Arab” has provided an electronic link to receive applications to join the competition, provided that these contain the name of the participant according to his ID card, the name of the university or college and the relevant registration number. The poems submitted should not be less than 10 verses and not more than 15 verses.
.