Abstract
ABSTRACT This study is a reading of selected poems of Choman Hardi and Nazand Begikhani—two Kurdish-Iraqi poets—from their collections of poetry in English. It approaches these poems by classifying them as ‘poetry of witness’, a term coined by Carolyn Forché for the poetry that is written after an experience of extremity or in response to an experience of extremity. Drawing on Forché’s (1993; 2011; 2014) theory of poetry of witness as well as Elleke Boehmer’s (2018) position on poetics of trauma and terror in postcolonial writings, this study attempts to investigate both the politics and poetics of witnessing in Hardi and Begikhani’s poetry in English and explores why and how these two poets have borne witness to their experiences and Kurdish traumatic history in a new language and for a new reader. The analysis this study provides will also reveal how poetry bears witness and how it acts as testimony; it identifies the characteristics and literary/aesthetic properties of poetry that make it a particularly powerful means of testimony, expression, and communication.
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