Public Words and Body Politics: Reflections on the Strategies of Women Poets in Rural Yemen

Abstract

This paper provides historical perspective on the mediation of women's public verbal activism in the Republic of Yemen by considering the public expressive strategies of two rural women poets. Much of the research on the expressive lives of Middle Eastern women has focused on verbal genres typically designated private or domestic, such as agricultural and wedding songs, lullabies and songs about personal experiences, and stories, tales, or narratives not traditionally considered "poetry." In contrast, this essay attends to public poetry and related discourses produced by and about two speci�c rural women. By examining how these women have managed, appropriated, and interrogated dominant patriarchal discourses of tribalism, Islamism, and nationalism, and by considering how media technologies contribute in different ways to embodying women's voices, this essay articulates a methodological framework that can better account for the expressive capacities of contemporary women activists in the rural Middle East.