A system and method for searching for and identifying traditional Arabic poems in unstructured text. The system includes a CPU, a computer readable memory and a computer readable storage media. The system further includes first program instructions to identify lines of text within the document that have equivalent length. The system further includes second program instructions to group the identified lines of text as candidate verses. The system further includes third program instructions to select the candidate verses to generate a candidate poem. The first, second, and third program instructions are stored on the computer readable storage media for execution by the CPU via the computer readable memory.