An Ecofeminist Perspective Across the Boundaries of Cultures as Represented in Suheir Hammad's Poetry

الملخص

As the existing incessant predicaments of the exiled Palestinian Muslims suffering the consequences of occupation, homelessness and racialism, in this article, we have selected a Palestinian-American poet, Suheir Hammad who portrays and reflects such crucial issues in her poetry. The select poems are classified into two main phases based on their content, context and purpose, namely, 'To be back' poems and ' Not to be black' poems. The discussion is carried out in two phases and it shows genuine manifestations of two crucial semiospheres which are bridged by the poet to form her collective Ecofeminist orientation across the boundaries of culture. She presents herself as a pendulum that swings between the two extremes of the dual semiospheres of the homeland and the host land of her current locality. On the one hand, from a distance, she focuses on the ecology of the homeland she has left behind and reveals a distinctive sense of consciousness for her Palestinianness, family's Muslim beliefs & Qur’anic teachings, ecological rootedness, cultural and social commitments along with a zeal to come back. On the other hand, she also spotlights on the current active social pandemic of blackness and the racial discrimination faced in the society of Brooklyn that she lives in. The condition of being doubly oppressed – oppression in her original homeland and harassment in her adopted host land –is reflected in Hammad’s use of nature in her poetry.