Polyphonic Resistance: Countering Erasure in Palestinian Poetry

Abstract This paper examines how contemporary Palestinian poetry articulates and potentially disrupts the exclusion of experiences of harm from dominant frameworks of representation. Against the background of erasure, we examine how poems address epistemic injustice and intervene in the politics of visibility and voice, notably in the context of the annihilation of Gaza. Situating Gaza within historic harm that extends back to the Nakba, our analysis foregrounds the longue durée of harm. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s concepts of polyphony and dialogism, we offer a close reading of a selected number of poems by Batool Abu Akleen, Mosab Abu Toha, and Fady Joudah. We argue that these poems enact a form of polyphonic resistance that pushes back against dominant frameworks of intelligibility, foregrounds Palestinian experiences of harm, and reclaims narrative authority. In doing so, they function as counter-archives that expand the conditions of recognizability and call for a rethinking of ethical and epistemic engagements with Palestine.