Saturday, Dec 20, 2008
Gulf News
Abu Dhabi: The Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH) will soon launch a website which will serve as the latest issue of the poetry encyclopaedia.
It will coincide with the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair to be held in March 2009.
The fourth edition of the encyclopaedia, whose publishing rights are owned by ADACH, will include: 2,693 poetry collections (which amount to 2.8 million verses or 138,641 poems).
The site will have 1,081 books on scientific, literary and historical heritage. Many of the original poetry collections have been provided with huge additional content. The third edition of Ahmad Shawqi's collection, for example, has 376 poems (11,724 verses), while the fourth edition includes 776 poems (16,517 verses).
Work on the poetry encyclopaedia began in 1997 and the National Library launched the first edition in 1998 and included nearly 180,000 verses from 88 poets, in addition to the Arabic dictionary 'Lisan Al Arab' (the Arab tongue) of Ibn Mandhour.
The second edition, published in 2001, included more than 1,000,300 verses, from 1,000 poets, 46 literary books and 3 dictionaries. The third edition, published in 2003, included 2,300 poetry collections (2,439,589 verses), 365 books and literary references and ten dictionaries.
Jumaa Al Qubaisi, Director of the National Library, said in a press statement, "ADACH was keen that the poetry encyclopaedia, in its new look, remains committed to the high refined taste of its Arab readers, in its collections of selected Arab poets - old and new."
He said the poetry encyclopaedia did not only include previously published poetry collections, as many poets, have not had their poetry collections published, while not every poet's work which has been published is of valuable significance.
The encyclopaedia was divided into two main sections; one for poets who have their own published selection of poetry, and another for poets whose work appears with other poets.
Gulf News 2008. All rights reserved.
