Literature through history preforms the function of transferring the unseen into seen and the meaningless into meaning. Nevertheless this job requires exceptional skills and talents in order to make sense and provide pleasure.

With my major being English Literature and Arts and Language, I found that poetry can provide insights into human conditions and emotions in a way nothing else can as all else pales before it, be it books, movies, novels, prose, drama, science, non-fiction or mythology.

Considering poetry being the genre I like in literature, I would pick a Saudi poet Prince Bader Bin Abdul Muhsin, the icon of the Arabic poetry, as a poet par excellence. Poetry is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language and it was this cadence that pulled me toward poetry.

I belong to AlBader’s school and it was this unusual phenomenon’s works that I first experienced the glow of the words and rhythm. Ironically I fell in love with poetry with the rhythm of his poems, knowing that he is one of the pioneers of modern poetry in the Middle East and, I believe, even all over the world.

Prince Bader has established a different meaning to poetry than the one I studied and experienced. For the model of English Literature though nuanced is metered. But, I believe, when it comes to AlBader school, we Saudis, and all those who understand his work, are immediately cast under his spell.

That’s because he is able to reveal all feelings with his words and one can feel the weight of meaning with rhythm in every circumstances. I mean by this, his ability to convey the love and pain, rain and tears, suffering and happiness, stationery and travel, light and shadow, village and city, past and present, tradition and modernity in sublime form for all to understand and savor. I well know how so much I talk about and praise the poet, it would prove to little. What a poet!

Prince Bader earned the title of the “Engineer of Words” and, he was unmatched in his thoughts and their meanings. His use to metaphors, paradox and adjectives etched his name as a poet unique in terms of employing rhymes and meanings. His efforts stay stuck in one’s mind lifelong, and the reason for the repeated recollection of his poems was due to the artistic techniques involved inside his works.

It is worth remembering here his historical national poem that is sung and admired by small and big as they live the words literally, in which AlBader describes the nature and places of the Kingdom and leaves the readers elevated, such that they feel they are on the top of the clouds!! This work leaves one and all speechless.

There is obvious pleasure whenever a song or a tweet resonates with his words, showing the soft and loveable nature of the Saudi community, embellished by the depth of expressions. From another angle the artistic taste of the community is made evident as the poetry evokes a swirl of emotions.

I appreciate this tendency actually inside a human being, when it says we need to hear something meaningful and deep from time to time to keep our hearts alive.

The creative pieces of poetry that AlBader has written has enriched the Saudi literature heritage in particular, while highlighting the imaginations of Eastern man and woman while dealing with heart and mind. Many of us will always remember one of his masterpieces touching a special thing, memory, person or place and that means a lot.

— Saudi writer can be reached @moionlynoor