Poems written by a mother and housewife have angered Muslim clerics in the ultra-Conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The fact that she could also win $1.3 million (£864,000) in prize money and received regional, even worldwide, attention only makes the Islamist’s fury worse. So much so that she has received numerous death threats originating on well known Islamist internet forums that are linked to al-Qaeda, according to a Saudi newspaper.
The winner of the Million’s Poet competition will be announced on the 31st of March this year and Hissa Hilal, the Saudi housewife in question, is one of the favourites to pick up the hefty financial prize. The poetry competition results will be aired on Abu Dhabi state television which receives a large following across the globe. Nabati poetry, or Bedouin poetry is the main theme of the competition and is widely popular amongst Gulf Arabs.
Islamists have become infuriated with the contents of Hissa Hilal’s poetry which condemns the rigid Islamist social conditions placed upon women in Saudi Arabia. She also criticises the use of fatwas and has labelled the actions by extremist clerics as evil as well as writing a poem about such issues which is titled ‘The Chaos of Fatwas’. As Hilal says herself, she wants to “fight extremism which has become a worrying phenomenon”.
As well as condemning the separation of the sexes in Saudi society, the brave poetess has also damned the phenomenon of Islamic suicide bombings and has labelled the perpetrators as “monsters wearing belts”. The panel members of the contest which is held in the relatively moderate city of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates have so far been impressed with the Saudi housewife and have praised her outspoken attitude and bravery in the face of severe punishment.
In a nation where women are forced to cover from head to toe, including their faces and be unable to move around or work freely without a male relative, the freedom and expression of poetry becomes so much sweeter and indeed vital.
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was published earlier this week. The 500-stanza poem which has never before seen the light of day was loosely based on a collection of Norse myths. These were named Elder Edda and were preserved in a 13th-century manuscript which he had cherished. 
which is a T.S. Eliot Prize winning collection. It’s a book-length love-poem and a moving act of personal testimony through the human emotions of infatuation, longing, passion, commitment, rancour, separation, and grief. With poems that will find deep resonance in the experience of most readers, it is a collection that can and does speak for us all. 
Pashto poetry is increasingly becoming a means for young people in Afghanistan to express the daily horrors they often face. The destruction caused by Islamic terrorists and the Arab import of suicide bombings, has led to the expansion of the Pashto lexicon. Violence has fuelled not only more violence but also poems regarding the “ill fate” of their nation and homeland. 
Scottish poet Carol Ann Duffy is being tipped as the next British Poet Laureate. If appointed, she would become the first female to be installed into the historic post. Ms Duffy, who is openly lesbian, was chosen by the British government but has to wait for the final say from the Queen, which is mere a formality. 
was published in 1985. Ten years later, in 1995 she was awarded an OBE and then in 2001, a CBE. Duffy’s popularity has soared over the last couple of decades and she has even become part of the school syllabus in England and Wales.
The troubled British singer Amy Winehouse has apparently taken up writing poetry. Inspired by her on-off lover Pete Doherty, lead rocker of the Babyshambles, she hopes her writings will put inspiration into the mind’s of children. 
