In the magisterial 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. Although controversial and ‘machiavellianist,’ at times, a few coeval poets could claim that they made name, fame, and controversy, in Rustamīd Tahart, Aghlabid Qayrawan, Abbasid Baghdad, and Idrīsid Fes/Kart. With this comes an intellectual studentship and scholarly experience at the famed learning center of Basra as well as a brief stay in Cairo and possibly al-Andalus. In my contribution, I will briefly examine the life, career, and poetry of this largely forgotten premodern Maghribi poet —dubbed the “Abū ‘l-ʿAtāhiya of the Maghrib.” Related to the main topic of this panel, I will give special attention to young Bakr Ibn Ḥammād’s poetic jousting at the court of al-Muʿtaṣim (r.833-842) namely his poetic taḥrīḍ (incitement ) against Diʿbil ibn ʿAlī al-Khuzāʿī (d.860) which led to a poetic musājala (disputation) with Abū Tammām (d. 845). Finally, I will briefly present a fascinating contemporary poetic ḥiwāriyya (conversation) with Bakr Ibn Ḥammād penned by ʿAbd al-Qādir Rābḥī, a contemporary Algerian poet and academic famed for his poetically and politically sophisticated (dis)connecting of Alegria’s turāth (heritage) with Algerian postcolonial modernity(ies).