Sheikh Hamdan, the poet named "Fazza", Recites Poetry to Packed Auditorium

I've been meaning to write on this article for a while now.

For several months I would drive to work down Sheikh Zayed Road and see the billboards for "Fazza" with Sheikh Hamdan's photo on it. I had no idea what it was for until this article came out in the Gulf News.

It seems that Hamdan is a poet who writes under the pseudonym of "Fazza". And I didn't know he had such a following! The article says, among other things, that:

Poetry enthusiasts from throughout the Gulf could be seen, as well as a significant female audience, for whom specific seats were reserved. The female audience, mostly comprising young Emirati women, played a part in making the event interactive, with the women occasionally calling out their own poetry in response to Shaikh Hamdan's. The male audience comprised men of all ages, with some men bringing their young sons to listen to the readings.

I wish I could have been there just to see this. The interplay between the crowd and the 'reciter' sounds really interesting... just very culturally very distinct. It's almost like the following that England's princes get in some ways.

It seems that Sheikh Hamdan has been tapped as the 'next in line' to Mohammed. His face has been in the news a lot in the last year. And this poetry reading is just one evidence. We'll be watching to see what happens with Sheikh Hamdan in the coming months.