John Lundberg: Arab Tensions Play Out in Verse on This Season's Million's Poet (TV Squad)

The fifth season of the _American-Idol_ style poetry competition _Million's
Poet_ premiered this past Tuesday in the Middle East, and it seems that the
Arab world's most-watched TV show is only getting more popular: in the run-up
to this season, it attracted more than 20,000 applicants from more than 20
countries.

Over the next few months, 48 pre-selected finalists will battle it out on a
weekly basis on the UAE TV station AD Emarat TV, with the winner receiving a
prize of five million dirhams (more than a million dollars). As with _American
Idol_, contestants are scored for their performance by a panel of three judges
(one each from the UAE, Kuwait and Jordan), though, in a new twist this
season, a psychologist will also analyze each contestant's personality.

I've written about _Million's Poet_ before. It is evidence, not just of the
popularity of poetry in the Middle East, but of its power -- particularly as a
mouthpiece for progressive thinking in the region. The show is born from the
region's tradition of Nabati poetry, a tribal poetry that often focuses on
social concerns; and competing poets are thus allowed a sort of immunity to
voice ...

TV Squad

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