Poems Touching on Human Anxiety and the Reclaiming of History
In the Fifth Evening of the Sharjah Arabic Poetry Festival

On an evening that celebrated poetry and granted the word its expansive space, the fifth poetry night of the Sharjah Arabic Poetry Festival was held at the House of Poetry in Sharjah yesterday evening (Friday). The event was attended by His Excellency Abdullah bin Mohammed Al Owais, Chairman of the Sharjah Department of Culture, and Mr. Mohammed Ibrahim Al Qaseer, Director of the Cultural Affairs Directorate at the Department of Culture, alongside a large audience drawn to the radiance of eloquence and eager for texts grounded in strength of language and rhetorical clarity, and for meanings evoked in their most refined manifestations.

The evening featured the participation of a group of poets who presented diverse experiences in vision and style: Emirati poet Abdullah Al Hidayah, Algerian poet Okba Mazouzi, Palestinian poet Mustafa Matar, Syrian poet Reeman Yassin, Iraqi poet Hizbar Mahmoud, alongside Saudi poet Hussein Al Ammar and Yemeni poet Mohammed Al Soudi. Their readings enriched the poetic atmosphere of the evening, with texts that ranged between existential contemplation, human concern, and the evocation of both individual and collective memory.

At the opening of the evening, Iraqi poet Hizbar Mahmoud inaugurated the poetry readings, presenting his texts “Twin of the Sun,” “On the Path to the Field,” and “A Forgetful Crow.” His poems appeared deeply engaged in deconstructing everyday human experience and in approaching small details that reveal the inner life of the human being behind notions of strength and struggle. His language leaned toward contemplative narration, grounded in subtle paradoxes that strike a balance between pain and awareness.