Poems for a Feminist Palestine

Palestinian feminist scholars have long described Palestine as a feminist issue, foregrounding the intersections between critical feminist commitments and the ongoing genocide of Palestinian people—my people. Creating, experiencing, and sharing poetry amid genocide can function as a mode of collective resistance, countering the isolation and division imposed by settler colonial systems. Creativity and imagination are likewise central to feminist relationalities and praxes. As a parent and queer/trans muslim Palestinian scholar-artist, the processes of writing and sharing poetry have been sustaining as I witness atrocities live-streamed. Observing how children are treated within these conditions surfaces the profound sorrow we are forced to carry; this collection speaks directly to that grief. Each poem centers children as both subjects and witnesses. In “Redacted,” I speculate on my father's affective experience as he endured the Nakba at five years old. “Yalla, Yamshi,” a visual poem, traces the journey that led my family to settle on Turtle Island (the United States) in pursuit of “a better life” for their children. “A Palestinian Mother” is visceral and immediate, imagining the desperation surrounding a mother's devastating words. In the final poem, “Ever, Again,” I turn to my own children, confronting the impossibility of taking their lives for granted. A truly feminist world would ensure that no child is subjected to violence; that such suffering persists remains an indictment of us all. Creative expression through critical feminisms offers the possibility of truth-telling as balm for these open wounds.