Drummer wins Ahmed Shawky Poetry Award

The Egyptian Writers Union announced today, Saturday, in Cairo, the victory of Moroccan poet Abdel Karim Al-Tabbal in the Ahmed Shawqi International Prize for Poetic Creativity, in its third session, in the Arab poets category, and the victory of Egyptian poet Mohamed Al-Shahawy (Egyptian poets category).

Alaa Abdel Hadi, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the General Syndicate of the Egyptian Writers Union, said that the Ahmed Shawqi International Prize for Poetic Creativity seeks to honor the memory of the Prince of Poets and revive the status of poetry and poets.

The Board of Trustees of this session, headed by Alaa Abdel Hadi, was formed of poet Ahmed Abdel Moaty Hegazy, critic Youssef Noufal, critic Makarem El-Ghamry, and critic Sami Suleiman.

Sami Suleiman, Professor of Literature and Criticism and member of the Board of Trustees of the Award, said that the poet Abdel Karim Al-Tabbal is one of the pioneers of the modern poetic movement in Morocco, and has a creative career spanning more than six decades, during which his poetic experience went through many transformations indicating the interaction of that experience with the developments of contemporary Arabic poetry, while maintaining the uniqueness of his poetic voice and his ability to remain innovative and striving to explore new areas in his continuous poetic creativity.

Suleiman pointed out that there are several justifications supporting the nomination of poet Abdul Karim Al-Tabbal for the Ahmed Shawqi International Prize for Poetic Creativity, including the poetic experience that extends over more than six continuous decades, which the poet began by copying the features of romanticism in its celebration of nature and in its quest for the poetic text to be an expression of an individual vision that is not devoid of interaction with the voice of the group, without making it a restriction that curbs its desire to have its own song that it chants.

The Egyptian critic highlighted that Abdel Karim Al-Tabbal, in his early beginnings in the sixties of the twentieth century, continued to weave on these melodies, then he began to deepen his vision of reality and the world, so his poetry merged with the free verse movement, so his poetic voice became a voice expressing a vision based on connection to the issues of reality and singing about the dreams of the Moroccan and Arab people in poetic formulations close to the reader and his daily world, while preserving its poetic elements, from a living language, whispering music, and a visual formation that extracts from the elements of the daily and life the threads of its images and their living elements, as he continued to continue this trend with his openness to the trends of European poetry and his communication with their achievements.

Regarding the poet Mohamed El-Shahawy’s victory in the Egyptian poets category, critic Youssef Noufel, a member of the award’s board of trustees, said that El-Shahawy is one of the innovative and creative poets and among the stars of the sixties of the last century. He has poetic creations through his various collections of poems, noting that El-Shahawy is one of the creative critics, as he has added, in addition to his diverse poetic creativity, many critical studies and various contributions to literary periodicals, as editors, supervisors and publishers.

The same critic added that Al-Shahawi has a poetic flow that does not stop or dry up, and his poetry shows artistic originality and deep vision, and he took poetry as a sublime artistic message.

The first round of the award was won by the Egyptian poet Ahmed Abdel-Moati Hegazy and the Yemeni poet Abdul Aziz Al-Maqalih, while the second round was won by the Egyptian poet Mohamed Ibrahim Abu Senna and the Syrian poet Shawqi Baghdadi.