The headline to this Saudi Gazette article is a little misleading. The popular TV show ‘The Million’s Idol’ in which people compete through their poetry, does permit Saudi women to take part. What the program’s producers will not do is to conduct the preliminary rounds of the competition within Saudi Arabia for women: they will have to go elsewhere to get through the opening round. And, according to the piece, they are very much doing so!

Poetry is considered among the highest of the arts in the Arab world, with Bedouin poetry holding a particular place in popular culture. While this competition does not offer recording contracts to the winner, it does have some serious cash prizes: UAE Dh 5 million (US $1.4 million) to the overall winner.

Poet Idol excludes women to avoid ‘clash’ with Commission
Abdullah Obaiyan

JEDDAH – Organizers of the popular reality TV show The Million’s Poet have refused to meet female Saudi poets in the Kingdom during qualification trials in Riyadh and Jeddah, citing possible “clashes” with the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, according to a group of females hoping to compete.

The aspiring poetesses, who wish to remain unnamed, were instead asked to submit requests to take part in the show’s offices in Abu Dhabi and Amman, with program organizers emphasizing their commitment to respect the culture and customs of every country they visit during their search for entrants.

Several female poets, however, did appear on Wednesday night’s broadcast from Abu Dhabi, among them Saudi poetess Balqis Al-Shimairi and others of Oman and Iraq.
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