We love stories at Ward, and that’s why we started the Kan yama kaninitiative in collaboration with Unootha. The main goal is to introduce everyone to new tools and media that they can use to tell their own stories.
Every month, we host a new guest who introduces us to their medium of interest. Our third guest was was Dr. Afra Atiq, an award-winning Emirati poet and scholar. Dr. Atiq has completed her PhD in Media and Creative Industries at UAE University. Her research interests include the Arab literary scene, especially the one rapidly growing on social media. She addresses various topics in her poetry in both English and Arabic, ranging from culture and heritage to food and identity.
In this session of Kan yama kan, Dr. Atiq explained why poetry matters, especially in these very trying times. She also took us on a journey with her to explore spoken word poetry and the extra element of (live) performance that distinguishes it. Poetry to Dr. Atiq is about cultivating community. And since there’s no better way to connect with familiar and new people than spoken word, she concluded the session with reading some of her poems.
