With the participation of 277 Poets, from 19 countries.

Abu Dhabi 29/01/2024

Khalifa International Award for Date Palm and Agricultural Innovation General Secretariat, announces the winners of the "Date Palm International Poetry" competition, in its 8^th Session (2024), which is held under the patronage of H.E. Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan, Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence, Chairman of the Award’s Board of Trustees.

First Category (Official Arabic) results are as follows:

1. First Place: Bakr Awadh Awad Al-Saadat Al Mzayda
2. Second Place: Zakaria Tawfiq Ismail Attia
3. Third Place: Micheal Mohamed Al-Eid

Second Category (Nabatti) results are as follows:

1. First Place: Atiq Khalfan Al Kaabi
2. Second Place: Muzna Rabie Mubarak Al-Braiki
3. Third Place: Obaid Mubarak Khalfan Al Mazrouei

The total number of participants in the competition in its 8^th Session was 277 poets, from 19 countries, who wrote their poems in the official Arabic language and the Nabatti style in the love of the date palm tree and its impact. This announcement was made in a press statement by Dr. Abdelouahhab Zaid, Award’s Secretary-General, after receiving the results of the poetry evaluation by the jury specializing in Nabatti poetry and literary criticism. It includes the poet and journalist Aidha bin Masoud, the poet and journalist Hamdan bin Sarroukh Al-Darei, and the poet and critic Sameh Ahmed Kaoush. The methodology of the jury’s work is summed up in evaluating the level of poets and the quality of their poetic texts in classical and Nabati styles, based on aesthetic and rhetorical standards such as innovation and novelty in description, and the idea, as well as enriching the topic and graphic images. Poetics and creative refinements, in addition to linguistic, grammatical and musical standards, such as external music, r and rhyme, the structure of the poem, and its objective and organic unity.

The Award’s Secretary General also added that the "Date Palm International Poetry" competition aims to employ Nabatti poetry as an important mean in developing public awareness of the importance of the date palm tree in terms of heritage, agriculture, food and economy. This also helps in promoting the culture of date palm to revive one of the purposes of poetry and provide the Arab library and the poetry scene with a distinctive quality of poems in the love of the date palm tree, and encourage poets to create and write quality poems and allow everyone to compete in a transparent way.