I have been enjoying Kuwait City and in particular the 11th awards ceremony of the Abdul Aziz Saud Al-Babtain Award Foundation for Poetic Creativity, which was sponsored by Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. The celebration also marked the launch of the foundation's new publication, "The Al-Babtain Dictionary for Arabic Poetry in the 19th and 20th Centuries," which includes selections from the work of 8,000 poets in Arabic. Al-Babtain, a poet and the foundation's chairman, made a statement at the opening ceremony thanking the amir for his patronage. This is an important step, an amir taking time to support a poetry event. I appreciate that. Later on I learned that Kuwait has always been a leading country in terms of its cultural festivities.
A poetry library
I was surprised to learn that there is a library in Kuwait especially for poetry. The Al-Babtain Central Library for Arabic Poetry is the world's first library specializing in Arabic poetry. Its uniqueness stems from the interests of its founder and owner, Al-Babtain. The library is just one of the many projects he funds to serve Arabic poetry, including the aforementioned Abdul Aziz Saud Al-Babtain Prize for Poetic Creativity, the prosody courses he organizes all over the Arab world and the books and anthologies, old and new, his foundation published. The library emerged naturally among these projects as a vessel that protects poems and those who write, narrate, study and conduct research in poetry. The library's collection is not confined to classical poetry, but it also covers modern poetry, out of a strong belief in the importance of communication between generations across the eternal bridge of creativity upon which our civilization was built.
With all due respect to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's personal achievements in poetry, looking at Turkey's approach to literature and authors -- and poets in particular -- I see that we keep a very low profile in terms of respecting and supporting literary events. I am impressed with both the quality and quantity of the crowd that shows up to literary events in Kuwait. It would be difficult to attract such an audience even to a beauty contest in Turkey.
By the way, I am not happy with the harsh criticism against Erdoğan in regard to the mistake he made when referencing the name of a Turkish poet after reading a nice poem. I would rather focus on the unbelievable fact that a prime minister read a poem on a suitable occasion. It is difficult to expect such a performance from a prime minister before an audience who condemned several poets for years, exiling and imprisoning them. Take good care of your prime minister and support his love of poetry.
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