I’m sure there is a good deal of overlap between the Abu Dhabi Hunting and Equestrian Exhibition and a hunting exhibition you might attend in the United States, for instance.
Attendees of both would be interested in exhibitors’ new toys, new technologies, as well as more traditional and environmentally responsible hunting methods. The North American hunters might be interested in a photo competition, and—who knows—maybe even in realist painting.
But it’s hard to imagine the North American attendees submitting their poems to a hunting expo competition.
This year’s Abu Dhabi exhibition, on the other hand, will feature a “Nabaty poetry competition describing a bird, the loss of a bird, and poems on hunting known locally as ‘miqnas.'” That’s according to a press release published online.
Says Sultan Al Amimi, the poetry-academy director at at the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage:
There is a close link between traditional Arabic poetry and those types of sports. This exhibition presents us another opportunity to highlight the linkage between our heritage and our modern literature.
A jury of leading poets will judge the contest; according to the press release, they will analyze the poems in terms of language, rhyme, philosophical influences, and “expressions about ‘miqnas.'”
