Where everything is frantic and there’s no space left for romance, Jamil Adas has succeeded in planting its roots no matter what, and creating out of nothing, something beautiful. Dubai poetics is poetry, visual, written and a lot more. It is a community which doesn’t surrender to the arid­ity of a world that nails us to the desk and makes us numbers. Dubai Poetics is freedom to a dreamer.

That’s why I wanted to interview Jamil, who reminds us that life is not just numbers and files, but also the beauty of simplicity, to be together with the people you love and to appreciate the fortunes you have.

Like poetry or any work of art, something must have inspired you to come up with this idea, tell us the story behind its conception and creation?

Dubai Poetics was born on the 1st of January 2016. I had come back home one day from my corporate job feeling like another screw to a part of a huge machine that can be replaced in a matter of minutes. Out of that frustration, I tried to think of a way to have a positive effect on my community and become a strong influenc­er. Admittedly, the idea came to me when I was in Hal­ifax, NS (Canada). I stumbled upon a flyer that asked people to submit their poetry for a chance to be publi­cized, so I had a small poem written and submitted. A few weeks later I stumbled upon a small booklet that contained my poem as part of that organization’s (Open Heart Forgery) edition. So I thought, I’m sure people here would be happy if I replicated that idea! I set a goal of receiving 10 poems per month and I achieved that target month-in and month-out. After that, I started thinking of ways to make it more appealing so I con­tacted a few visual artists and asked them to work on some poems in exchange for exposure to their pages.

Take us on a journey of how it works, and how the communi­ty can get involved?

Currently, we are doing 3 major activities involving poetry:

• Poetry publication with visual art collaboration: any poet can submit their poem(s) to me at poetry@dubai­poetics.com and I will share the poem with a visual art­ist that has shown interest in working with us (I usually recruit visual artists through Instagram – most of the time they are glad to work on this initiative for free! I also offer them exposure by providing links to their page). The poems are posted on our website, Facebook and Instagram pages.
• “Poetry Nights” – Spoken Word events: we host spo­ken word poetry events where poetry lovers come to experience live poetry performances from our featured artists. This is a poetry night that is fun, laid-back and full of honest poetry.
• Poetry & Written workshops: we also host poetry & written workshops where we get an established poet/writer to direct the workshop and give valuable feed­back on the participant’s writings. Other participants are encouraged to share their own feedback as well to help their peers. On top of that, we also host spoken word performance workshops teaching poets how to deliver their poetry effectively on the stage while creat­ing an official event afterwards.

We all know that poets can’t be inspired all the time and sometimes they get writer’s block. How do you make sure you have content all the time?

I’d say 90% of Dubai Poetics publications are from UAE residents. I’ve had some submissions from people out­side UAE and didn’t have the heart to reject them. We put out the appearance that we are the product of and for the people of Dubai. No payments from either side are involved in submitting or virtual publication of po­etry. It’s free!

So, are you ready to become part of Dubai Poetics and blossom in all your poetry?