CAIRO - Millions of his Egyptian fans were hoping and expecting that he would win ‘The Prince of Poets' competition, but the jury thought otherwise. On Wednesday night, it announced that Hesham el-Gakh, who writes in the vernacular, had come second in this year's competition after the Yemeni poet Abdel-Aziz el-Zeraa'i. El-Gakh is an Egyptian poet from the Upper Egyptian Governorate of Sohag, known for its harsh conditions and tough dialect. He has helped revive a forgotten art form, poetry, that has been around since ancient Egyptian times and is used to express people's frustration and pain. El-Gakh has been inspired by several other renowned Egyptian vernacular poets, known for their powerful political invective, including Mahmoud Bayram el-Tunsi, Salah Jaheen, Abdel-Rahman el-Abnudi and Ahmed Fouad Negm. He proved popular during the competition, because he blamed Arab leaders for the divisions in the Arab world in his poem Al-Ta'asheera (The Visa). He has penned more than 800 poems, including Al-Tahrir Square, about the recent revolt, and boasts more than 60,000 Facebook fans. Applause thundered through the hall and Egyptian flags fluttered above the bleachers in Al-Raha Beach Theatre, Abu Dhabi, as he began to recite his poems, including The Last Message, about tolerance and the importance of meditation. Along with el-Gakh and el-Zeraa'i, Mohamed Hegazy and Mohamed el-Azzam, both from Jordan, Montazer Mossawi from Oman and the Iraqi Nagah al-Ersan were competing in this annual competition for Arabic poetry. It was first launched in 2007 by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage. The poets go through four stages and the whole competition can consist of up to ten episodes.
