EXPLORING WOMEN DUB AS APPARATUS OF PERFORMATIVE RESISTANCE

Abstract

While “dub” poetry, a sub-genre of performance poetry, is a male-dominated field women dub poets have entered this field with the help of male poets and then gradually carved their place within the genre as independent contributors and established themselves as a resistant force. When women dub poets write about the issues of general politics, they are welcomed but when they focus on women’s problems and gender questions, domestic affairs they are often neglected and sometimes criticised. The question remains how could women, being the representatives of traditional domesticity can/ should adhere to address/ challenge/ use the ‘public’ platforms of performance surrendered and occupied by men. Even if one or two women do so, should they remain under the shadow of their male counterparts and follow the ideals directly or indirectly dictated by them or should they set their own terms? Through various modes of performance women poets often defy the male policy of exclusivity. While male dub poets make their own rules, women poets often disobey the male diktat. This paper wishes to explore how performances of African descended women poets, especially from the Caribbeans, recurringly engage in a dialogue challenging patriarchal poetic and performative elitism and how it often brings tabooed ideas, domesticity, and other areas of “women’s activity” into the forefront of literary arenas and in doing so they forward the genre to a more flexible, more adaptive, and richer form of poetic expression.