News at Eleven: Steve Caton, a professor of anthropology

at Harvard and director of its center for Middle Eastern Studies, said that in Yemen, where he lived and first did research around 30 years ago, a new poem would be published in the newspaper every day, taxi drivers would listen to poetry tapes while stuck in traffic jams and new books of poetry would sell out immediately after publication. He also described poetry's use in mediation in which the aggrieved parties would engage in a ritual of poetic challenge and response. "I interpreted this as a form of theater," he said, but it was "serious stuff" that had to be resolved.

from Downtown Express: Conference explores world of Islamic poetry

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