Speaking out the unspoken in life has been always framing most literary topics getting the readers to scrutinize all what has been presented as truth. The need for telling has been a stimulus for most poets to show by imagery and rhythm that words can alter the world. Rafeef Ziadah(1979-), an Anglophone Palestinian poetess living in Canada, has intermingled in her poetry many topics that address race, gender, and identity, and succeeded in introducing them within the border lines of storytelling; something that evolved to address intersectional biography. She has also insisted on performing her poetry out facing the world with a reality no one can deny, being performed in her own voice. Repetition, tone, intonation, and even pauses are all tools of representation here. Ziadah is also keen on having her poetry performed accompanied by music that mounts to be an identifying feature of her poetry, exceeding the role of mere artistic decoration. Storytelling is introduced and performed on stage to pinpoint and contextualize a message that has been too familiar to get into people's consciousness. Literary devices, storytelling, performance, and music are all employed as rhetorics of protest in Ziadah's poetry. Ziadah mixes the verbal and nonverbal to document her intersectional biography as a Palestinian woman. Intersectional biography in Ziadah's performative poems “We Teach Life, Sir!” (2011), “Shades of Anger” (2012) and “Hadeel” (2012) is held and analyzed to show how it is presented in such a way that defamiliarizes pain, resistance and resilience.
Saleh, Engy, & الديسطي, أماني. (2025). “If My Words Can Stop This”: Intersectional Biography in Rafeef Ziadah's Diasporic Performative Poetry. مجلة کلية الاداب.جامعة المنصورة, 77(77), -. doi: 10.21608/artman.2025.407341.3181
MLA
Engy Saleh; أماني الديسطي. "“If My Words Can Stop This”: Intersectional Biography in Rafeef Ziadah's Diasporic Performative Poetry", مجلة کلية الاداب.جامعة المنصورة, 77, 77, 2025, -. doi: 10.21608/artman.2025.407341.3181
HARVARD
Saleh, Engy, الديسطي, أماني. (2025). '“If My Words Can Stop This”: Intersectional Biography in Rafeef Ziadah's Diasporic Performative Poetry', مجلة کلية الاداب.جامعة المنصورة, 77(77), pp. -. doi: 10.21608/artman.2025.407341.3181
VANCOUVER
Saleh, Engy, الديسطي, أماني. “If My Words Can Stop This”: Intersectional Biography in Rafeef Ziadah's Diasporic Performative Poetry. مجلة کلية الاداب.جامعة المنصورة, 2025; 77(77): -. doi: 10.21608/artman.2025.407341.3181