In Tarīkh al-Jazāʾir al-Thaqāfī, Abū al-Qāsim Saʿd Allāh(d. 2013) hailed Bakr Ibn Ḥammād al-Tāhartī(d. 909) as one of Algeria’s most iconic cultural figures and portrayed the peripatetic fils natif of Tahart (modern Tiaret) as one the Maghrib’s greatest poets of all time. Saʿd Allāh didn’t miss the chance to deplore what he sees as an a Mashriqi disinterest in the Maghribi heritage and the neglect of Maghribi poets such as Bakr Ibn Ḥammād. While this is widely reflective of other Maghribi poets, what makes Bakr Ibn Ḥammād’s case specifically suggestive is the uniqueness of his intellectual wanderjahre and the richness of his experiences in multiple capital cities, scholarly venues, and caliphal courts across the Maghrib and the Mashriq. This is in addition to being one of the earliest non -Arab (Amazigh) Maghribis to compose and excel in classical Arabic poetry. Although controversial and ‘machiavellianist,’ at times, a few, if any at all, coeval poets/scholars could claim that they made name, fame, and controversy, in Rustamid Tahart, Aghlabid Qayrawan, Abbasid Baghdad, and Idrisid Fez during his poetic/scholarly lifetime. With this comes an intellectual studentship and scholarly experience at the famed learning center of Basra as well as a brief stay in Fatimid Cairo. In my contribution, I will examine the life and career of this largely forgotten Maghribi poet —dubbed the “Abū ‘l-ʿAtāhiya of the Maghrib.” By sketching the poet’s wanderjahre, experiences, and encounters in a number of Maghribi and Mashriqi capital cities, scholarly venues, and caliphal courts, I will shed much needed light on his obscured poetic legacy namely his zuhdiyyāt, marthiyyāt, and madīḥiyyāt. I will give special attention to young and immature Bakr Ibn Ḥammād’s experience at the court of al-Muʿtaṣim (r.833-842) and his adversarial personal encounter and poetic exchange with Diʿbil ibn ʿAlī al-Khuzāʿī(d.860) and Abū Tammām(d. 845). I will further explore his poetic defense of Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib (d.661) as imbedded in a hijā’ (invective) of Ibn Muljam al-Murādī(d.661). This polemical poem (nūniyya) has been gaining wide virtual popularity across tens of Islamic sites ushering in an unprecedent non-scholarly upsurge in interest in Bakr Ibn Ḥammād. Last but not least, I will explore a fascinating contemporary poetic conversation with Bakr Ibn Ḥammād penned by ʿAbd al-Qādir Rabḥī, a contemporary Algerian poet/academic famed for his poetically and politically sophisticated (dis)connecting of Alegria’s turāth (heritage) with Algerian postcolonial modernity(ies).