The ‘Poetic Heart’ pulses in Dubai

It was a surprise invite that had me back in Dubai two weekends ago, to participate in the fourth edition of “The Poetic Heart: Connecting Humanity 2015” — two days of poetry readings, interspersed with musical performances, that had over a score of attendees representing nearly a dozen nationalities and languages. 

The venue for the event that transpired on Feb. 7 and 8 was the Cultural and Scientific Association (Nadwa) auditorium in Al Mamzar, Deira Dubai, the city’s cultural center.

Organizers and sponsors for the poetry symposium were Soka Gakkai international-Gulf in association with Knowledge Village, Dubai International Academic Cty, and the Cultural and Scientific Association.

The invitation expressed the objective of having “eminent and budding poets delivering their poetry on world peace, universal harmony, protection of the environment and the spirit of friendship.” We were all asked to prepare poems that fit or related to these themes.

What made the two-day event distinct from other poetry fests I’ve attended was the inclusion of the “budding poets” — in this case students from high school and college. Even more remarkable for me was that two of the 18 selected students — out of 130 poetry submissions from various schools — happened to be Filipino.

I’m afraid I only caught one name, the first who was introduced as from the “Philippine School” — that of Sophia Gabriel. And without brandishing any proud nationalism, I must say that she easily outshone all of the student-readers called onstage. So did the second Filipina student representative. Both were extremely confident and articulate when they read their poems in English. And their verses lofted higher than simple statements rife with abstractions, unlike those of most everyone else. Rather did they successfully employ a sufficiency of metaphors to highlight the theme of friendship. 

As one of the moving spirits behind the poetry fest, Tagore Peace Award winner Dr. Shihab Ghanem, said in his concluding remarks, what was unique about the Dubai poetry symposium was that we all wound up not only as friends, but that “we are now family.”

Indeed, the impression I had from the get-go, as we assembled at the venue for the first time, was that most of the invitees were repeat participants. They all seemed to know one another already, having attended one if not all of the previous editions. It was like seeing long-lost friends getting back together again. And we first-timers had now joined the family. 

The roster of Emirati and foreign poets included H.E. Jamal Bin Huweireb, Dr. Aysha Al-Busmait, Hassan Alhaijar, Mahmood Noor, Talal Salim Al Saabn, Khalid Badr Obaid, Hamda Khamis and Shaikha Al-Mutari of the United Arab Emirates; Ms. Salma (Rajathi Samsudeen), Geeta Chhabra and Sankara Pillai of India; H.E. Dr. Abdullah Al-Faify and Jassim Al-Suhayyih of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; Dr. Qais Ghanem and Cheryl Braganza of Canada; Dr. Daisaku Ikeda (eventually proxied by Dr. Akash Ouchi) of Japan; Dr. Jaffer Al-Allaq of Iraq; Dr. Manfred Malzahn of Germany; Prof. Francesca Corrao of Italy; Silvana Salmanpour of Iran; Raad Aman of Yemen; and yours truly.

We totaled 22 poets, of 11 nationalities, writing and reciting poetry in 11 languages. The poets from the host country, as well as their visiting neighbors from KSA, Iraq and Yemen all conducted their poetry in Arabic, while those from India used Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam.

That last language sounded enchanting, as chanted in one of his poems by Sankara Pillai from Bangalore. (He read the rest in English translation.) Sankara became the first of my newfound Dubai kin, since we had the good fortune of being taken around the city by a volunteer host on our first morning

We only had a little more than a couple of hours, so I requested that we first be brought to the same beach I had been to in 2010, where one could take photos of the iconic Burj Al Arab hotel seemingly floating at sea as a gleaming giant sail.

But before that our guide said we first had to pose for pictures close to the Burj Khalifah, Dubai’s other architectural attraction — as the tallest building in the world at 829.8 meters, and with the most number of floors at 163. (I understand that by 2019 it will be outdone by the Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, at 1,000 meters.)

To get to the prime spot for photo-ops, we had to park inside the Dubai Mall, which our guide said was the largest in the world. It was quite a walk through and across several levels, and we made pit stops before a couple of waterfalls adorned with sculpture of human figures diving along the cascading waters, as well as a humongous aquarium (yes, also inside the mall), where over a hundred of other tourists gravitated.

Then we stepped out into a sunlit patio before a lagoon and a bridge across it leading to a modern version of a bazaar. Lording it over the hyper-modern complex was Burj Khalifah.

It was a short drive from there, through downtown Dubai, to the beach where a Saturday holiday crowd lazed on the sands for a tan. In the distance stood Burj Al Arab, where I had the privilege of taking high tea four years ago in the company of our visiting Tourism officials.

In animated chats with the mostly Indian volunteers who saw to our routines, I heard of how Dubai had since nearly entirely recovered from the economic crash of 2008. They were all in praise of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the “visionary leader ”responsible for the growth of Dubai into a global city. The Sheikh hadn’t passed on the burden of economic recovery to Dubai’s citizens and expatriates (nearly 40 percent of the population, with Indian, Pakistani and Filipino communities as the three largest). The recovery has been slow but steady, and presently Dubai has become the fifth most-visited city in the world.

Well, on that weekend it helped that poets congregated at the venue with its theater filling up with an audience of some 500 who relished the readings of verses on friendship and humanity.

Dr. Daisaku Ikeda, president of Soka Gakkai International (Japan) and the prime organizer of the festival, couldn’t be around this time. His proxy Dr. Akash Ouichi read his poems instead, while a couple of these that were turned into musical compositions were sung by SGI Gulf’s chorus group.   

One of the two poets from Canada, Ms.  Cheryl, also couldn’t make it at the last minute, but sent a video of herself reading her poems in English and French, capped by her playing her own composition on the piano.

Musical performances were also rendered by Osama Al Safii and three international musicians who have become mainstays of the annual program: guitarist Jason Carter from the UK, song writer and jazz vocalist Jukka Valipakka from Finland, and Arab fusion guitarist Kamal Mussalam, who played the oud, said to be the forbear of the guitar.

Another outstanding feature of the poetry readings was the use of two large screens as stage backdrop, for showing the poems in both the original language and as translated into English. On the stage too was a row of seats, six to seven, where each set of readers rested while taking turns on the podium, after each was called and introduced as their bio notes were projected onscreen. Smaller monitor screens were placed on tables before the set of seats, for the benefit of the next readers awaiting their turns.

Everything was also being recorded on video and shown via live streaming, as well as archived in the link http://www.thepoeticheart.com/events/the-poetic-heart-2015.

Lead organizer Rakesh Tharoors, ably assisted by Gaurav Shinghai, made sure to laud this digital team at the final ceremony; these volunteers certainly contributed significantly to making the poetry fest a memorable one. 

At the farewell banquet, I also had an opportunity to meet up again with Lalaine Chu-Benitez and Ramon Benitez, publishers of the glossy monthly magazine Illustrado, for which I’ve been writing a column for the past several years.

The experience was all too brief, but enough of an eye-opener on yet another way to run a poetry fest, which is to merge mature poets with young beginners. In Durban, South Africa, us so-called “page poets” shared our reading sessions with youthful locals who were categorized as slam poets and rap poetry performers. And we all enjoyed the mix and harmony, and learned from one another.  

In Dubai, the loyal youths were even younger. As budding poets, they certainly reaped much from the experience, while we “eminent” ones gained from their energy and innocence — all in the process of sharing our poetry.

The words of Dr. Daisaku Ikeda of SGI International ring true:

“What unites the soul of a poet and the soul of a leader is the earnest desire for the happiness of the people. In that spirit we find the beacon that will generate hope and illuminate the future path of human society. For many years, I have stressed the need to revive the poetic spirit in today’s world. It is the light of hope that will guide us in our efforts to transform suspicion into trust, division into harmony, conflict and confrontation into peace. I believe that within each of our lives resides a rich and robust poetic heart that reverberates in harmony with the rhythm of nature, the human society and the cosmos.”