“Talking Back”: The poetry of Suheir Hammad

Abstract

This paper examines how Suheir Hammad's poetry “talks back” (bell hooks) to dominant gendered discourses. My central argument is that Hammad's influential poetry is constitutive of a discourse of resistance. This paper posits resistance as being counter-hegemonic. It demonstrates how these representations signify a re-articulation of identity and a call for a redistribution of symbolic power. On the basis of a textual analysis of Hammad's poetry, supplemented with an individual interview with the artist involved, some discursive tactics emerge as interventions. From articulating her reactions to the September 11 attacks to her more recent mediated involvement with the uprisings commonly referred to as the “Arab Spring,” such interventions are always subjected to co-optation. Nonetheless, they propelled her into the public sphere, thereby affording opportunities to present creative works that point to stronger possibilities for Middle Eastern womanhood.