in his poetic anthology "al a'mal ash-shi'riyya" (الأعمال الشعرية) and in preface to "blossoming rose" tawfiq stated that he does not support poetry in prose, because it does not sound like a good verse, but at the same time tawfiq insisted that he supported existence of this genre itself. like other specialists of arabic literature, tawfiq knew the poetry of al-mutanabbi. in his own verses tawfiq appealed to al-mutanabbi's qasidas and biography, using a lot of inter-textual elements. also tawfiq gave an estimate of al-mutanabbi's panegyrics, raising the question of engagement of poetry and politics. tawfiq compared al-mutanabbi's panegyrics to sayf al-daula, with mohamed hassanein heikal's essays to late egyptian president gamal abdel nasser.