The semifinals to start next week

Abu Dhabi – Another female poet taking part in Arab’s biggest poetry competition had made it to the semifinals.

Saudi poet Mastoura Al Ahmadi was qualified by the jury panel last Wednesday in Millio’s Poet TV competition broadcast live from Al Raha Beach Theater on Abu Dhabi TV.

Mastoura gained the panel’s highest points (46 points out of 50) in the episode where she was competing with five mail poets.

 One of the five poets will be qualified by public voting online and via SMS through out the week. Poet with highest votes will make it to the semifinals.

Season four of the competition, kicked off last December, witnessed more female participation than the previous seasons where female poets in the region are shay to be exposed to media. In this season four female poets were qualified to participate in the competition, only two made it to the semifinals; Mastora Al Ahmadi and Hisa Hilal who made it last week.

Next Wednesday, phase three of the competition will start, where the 8 qualified poets from phase two will compete to make it to the final. The third phase test poet’s ability to improvise poetry as they are required to deliver a free poem ,not less than 18 verses, about certain topic they will know about in the same episode.

The panel chose 4 poets to participate in the next episode who are: Hissa Hilal and Mohammed Bin Ali Al Saeed from Saudi Arabia, Ali Al Ghayatheen Al Muri from Qatar and Falah Al Mouraqi from Kuwait.

The competition organised and produced by Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage is broadcast live every Wednesday at 10:30pm on Abu Dhabi TV from Al Raha Beach Theater in the capital.

 The competition aims to preserve one of the ancient literature forms in Arabia and part of authentic Bedouin heritage.

The show presents 48 poets, carefully selected="true" by a panel of experts on Nabati poetry (dialect poetry), from thousands of applicants after a six-week tour of the Arabian Gulf countries with contestants from all over the Arab world. The poets will battle it out, seeking to impress the jury and the audience with their poetic skills, in the hope of making it through to the grand final.

Contestants are judged using a mixture of jury votes, live audience votes via the in-theatre voting pods and SMS voting throughout the weeks. The Millions’ Poet who wins first place will receive an increased grand prize of 5 million AED ($1,362,000), second place will be awarded 4 million AED ($ 1,090,000), third place 3 million AED ($ 817,000), fourth place 2 million AED ($ 545,000) and fifth place 1 million AED ($ 272,000)