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Research in Political, International and Cultural Studies

The Resurgence of Kurdish Womens Poetry

Saman Salah Balaky

University of Exeter

Rpics Working Paper 1

First published in November 2011

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S. S. Balaky

The Resurgence of Kurdish Womens Poetry

Abstract
This paper is about the situation of Kurdish womens poetry in southern Kurdistan from
1990 to 2009, a period representing the renaissance of womens poetry as a result of the
greater freedoms achieved by women following the fall of Saddams regime in this part
of Kurdistan. It discusses the factors that resulted in a rapid growth in poetry
production by Kurdish women poets after decades of great silence following the division
of Kurdistan among Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria. It also explains how and why this type
of poetry has been marginalised in Kurdish literature. Moreover, the paper will justify
the applicability of Anglo-American feminist theory to the poetry of Kurdish women
poets and the role this feminist theory can broadly play for the restoration and
repositioning of Kurdish womens poetry on the Kurdish literary stage. It similarly
underlines the ground this theory can provide for giving a decent position to Kurdish
womens poetry in Kurdish literature. Equally important, it points to the challenges
faced by Kurdish women poets, posed by literary critics who evaluate the works written
by Kurdish male and female writers.

Key Words
Kurdish womens poetry; southern Kurdistan; Anglo-American feminist criticism;
gynocriticism; and patriarchy.

Research in Political, International and Cultural Studies

November 2011

The Resurgence of Kurdish Womens Poetry

Saman Salah Balaky, Centre for Kurdish Studies, University of Exeter
The Vulnerable Re-emergence of Kurdish Womens Poetry
Kurdish womens poetry is an aspect of Kurdish literature to which little critical
attention, either by Kurdish or foreign literary critics, has been given. It still remains
largely uncovered by scholars and researchers on local and international levels, a
situation which has undermined the influence of this type of poetry on Kurdish
literature, and resulted in the marginalisation of womens poetry in the literary arena.
There are many factors contributing to the lack of attention to Kurdish womens poetry:
one factor is the nature of the patriarchal Kurdish society which has been helpful only
for the creation of male rather than female poets, and a second is the constant dearth of
courage by Kurdish women to break with tradition and challenge a literature which has
been written and controlled by men. Kurdish women poets who dared to go beyond the
limits defined by men are few in number and have only been able to achieve their
ambitions of writing poetry and facing up to the dominance of men over literature on an
intermittent basis. However, this inertial propensity of Kurdish women to remain handtied and weak against the conspiracies of men to keep them continually on the periphery
of Kurdish literature came almost to an end in the last two decades of the twentieth
century when a group of Kurdish women poets in southern Kurdistan emerged, who
self-reliantly started writing poetry episodically. Specifically, Kurdish womens poetry
developed at a fast pace, both inside and outside southern Kurdistan, in the early 1990s.
This speedy growth coincided with the historic uprising by Kurds against the toppled
Iraqi Bath regime in 1991, which resulted in the total liberation of the three Kurdish
cities of Erbil (Hewlr), Dihok, and Slman1.
Meanwhile, the creation of an autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq with a self-ruled
government and parliament since 1992 has triggered the establishment of many
publishing houses both private and governmental, which have played a crucial role in
1

See erf (2009) for an illustration of the flourishing condition of Kurdish womens poetry in southern Kurdistan.

S. S. Balaky

The Resurgence of Kurdish Womens Poetry

the provision of printing facilities for women poets. As a result, tens of poetry
publications written by Kurdish women poets have come out in the past fifteen years,
posing a challenge to a literature that has been representing only male voices. These
publishers have not only served women poets from inside the Kurdistan Region;
Kurdish women poets living in the Diaspora who have not been able to publish their
poetry abroad due to expensive costs, have also benefited from them. The poetry written
by these poets over years has been released to readers both inside and outside
Kurdistan. It is equally important that this cohort of Kurdish women poets have not
merely broken their way through by publishing their poetry in the form of books, but
that they have also greatly made use of the large number of Kurdish and foreign
websites and published their poetry online, alongside men poets. Examples of the
websites, online magazines and newspapers where Kurdish women poets usually
publish their poetry are Raman (Vision), Exiled Writers Ink, Dengekan (Voices),
Bedirxan, The Poetry Archive, and Rber Dahnan (Creation Space). However,
favouritism and the arrogance of competent Kurdish male critics have caused a
noticeable decline in the importance of the poetry written by Kurdish women poets. This
has led to its failure to gain recognition on national and international levels, which
proves that the masculine spirit and power is prevalent in Kurdish literature. In an
interview with the Edeb Hner (Literature and Art) page of Kurdistan aport
(Kurdistan Report), Ebduleman (2009), a Kurdish woman poet and journalist born
in Hewlr in southern Kurdistan, criticises experienced male Kurdish critics for ignoring
the poetry of young Kurdish poets, including women poets, and considers factors like
personal and mutual interests and nepotism as the dynamics of treatment of womens
poetry. She goes on to say that leading Kurdish literary critics see themselves as
superior to the inexperienced young poets and take age rather than the works of such
poets into account while judging them, which is a huge disaster (Ebduleman 2009:
5).
Using a methodological approach inspired by the gynocritics of Elaine Showalter and
others operating within Anglo-American feminist criticism, this paper is an attempt at
bringing to light the poetry of Kurdish women poets which has been highly overlooked

Research in Political, International and Cultural Studies

November 2011

both by academics and public readers. Initially, the paper explores the relevance of
Anglo-American feminist criticism and its gynocriticism to the study of Kurdish
womens poetry by reading its function and theoretical propositions. It aims to find out
whether this feminist criticism is able to rescue Kurdish womens poetry from
invisibility and marginalisation and offer it a respectable position in Kurdish literature
side by side with Kurdish male poetry. Afterwards, it indicates the many challenges
Kurdish women poets confront in the Kurdish literary society that have obstructed the
development of their poetry and its influence on Kurdish literature.
Anglo-American Feminist Literary Theory
Although it might possibly be true even with other theories of feminism, one of the main
factors behind the selection of Anglo-American feminist literary theory to analyse
Kurdish womens poetry is the close affinity between Kurdish women writers in general,
poets in particular, and English-American women writers, in the sense that both have
been victims of patriarchal rule in society and its dominance over literature. In the case
of Anglo-American women writers, this issue has gradually been brought to an end by
the appearance of an enormous number of challenging and hardworking women writers
and feminist critics such as Kate Millet, Ellen Moers, Sandra Gilbert, Susan Gubar,
Annette Kolodny, and Elaine Showalter, who have allocated their time looking for
manuscripts and other writings by women, succeeding in bringing to life hundreds of
names of women writers, poets, novelists who, due to the unfair attitudes of male
writers towards them, were buried in the history of English and American literature.
Fetterley (1985, cited by Showalter 1993: 111) expresses her astonishment at her
discovery of an extraordinarily rich, diverse, and interesting body of prose literature
written in the nineteenth century by American women. Fetterley, alongside other
American feminist critics, has played a crucial role in uncovering the American women
writers who were neglected in the male-written canon of American literature, and has
dedicated her anthology to serve this purpose. This process of discovering womens
voices, old and new, both in Britain and America has become a concrete project and
resulted in plans to establish a womens literary tradition that is intended to be separate
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from the male tradition. Montefiore (1987: 57) believes that women writers must have a
tradition of their own because it is difficult for them to adopt the male tradition which is
only representative of the male voice and style. She advocates the idea of an alternative
womens tradition, particularly for women poets who, according to her, find it hard to
incorporate themselves in the male tradition or take advantage of its materials. She
believes that:
The idea of womens tradition would enable feminists not only to rewrite our
independent history of women poets, but to construct a context of poetic
meaning in which womens poems were not constantly overdetermined or
undermined by patriarchal suggestion and symbol; finally, it would work more
generally to help make a womans discourse thinkable. All of these make the (re)
creation of a womans tradition into an ambition well worth pursuing, even
though the very magnitude and importance of the project make it problematic
and controversial (Montefiore 1987: 57)
Feminist literary theory, as an integral part and philosophical branch of literary
criticism, has witnessed remarkable progress since the late 1960s. Academic, literary,
political, economic and cultural institutions around the world have all sensed the impact
of an all-inclusive and quickly flourishing revolution led by feminist criticism. Feminist
criticism, alongside other critical approaches, has played a major role in rediscovering
and revitalising the lost and ignored works of women writers all over the world and
succeeded in challenging the literary tradition and canon which have been formed and
monopolised by male writers and voices. In the introduction of her book, The New
Feminist Criticism: Essays on Women, Literature, and Theory (1985a), which is the
first meticulously selected compilation of a number of essays in feminist critical theory,
Showalter emphasises the great significance and implications of feminist criticism. She
believes that this principally women-led movement will play a critical role in mending
the deformed image and spoilt reputation of women writers on the literary stage of the
world. Showalter (1985a: 3) defines her women-centred argument when affirming that:

Research in Political, International and Cultural Studies

November 2011

whereas it had always been taken for granted that the representative reader,
writer, and critic of Western literature is male, feminist criticism has shown
that women readers and critics bring different perceptions and expectations to
their literary experience, and has insisted that women have also told the
important stories of our culture.
Thus, this development in feminist criticism has sparked off three geographically
distinct feminist criticisms: American, British and French feminist criticism. Each of
these have relatively discrete sets of ideas, principles, theory and way of thinking
towards the works of women writers. However, these three geographically dissimilar
strains of feminist criticism share the same obvious goal, which is finding the missing
and long-neglected oeuvres of women writers. As Bressler (1994: 106) says:
No matter what they emphasise in theory, however, all feminist critics assert
that they are on a journey of self-discovery that will lead them to a better
understanding of themselves. And once they understand and then define
themselves as women, they believe they will be able to change their world.
The propositions argued for by the American and British feminist criticisms serve as a
suitable theoretical model for the ultimate liberation of Kurdish womens poetry from
the historically monopolised and masculinised Kurdish literature by male writers and
critics. Besides, this theory proposes a sketch for the appreciation of literature written
by women, and it puts forward ideas for assessing the importance of this literature for a
peaceful settlement of gender conflicts. Generally, Anglo-American feminist criticism
seems to comply with the series of conventions embodied in literary realism. It deals
with literature as a clear sequence of authentic representations of the experience and
lives of women that can basically be judged and assessed against what happens in
reality. Barry (2009: 119) argues that Anglo-American feminists have a unique view
towards the analysis of literary texts and that they see the close reading and explication
of individual literary texts as the major business of feminist criticism.

S. S. Balaky

The Resurgence of Kurdish Womens Poetry

Contextually, American feminist criticism is different from its counterpart, British

feminist criticism, in that it puts a strong emphasis on the text itself, and pays crucial
attention to the textual characteristics such as theme, the inner and outer voice of the
texts, and the diverse tones each text is supposed to embrace. British feminism, on the
other hand, is more politically motivated with its agenda centring on social change and
equality between men and women. British feminism is often viewed as Marxist, which is
markedly laden with ideological conceptions. Therefore, it is clearly more related to
social and cultural reform and change than American feminism. Bressler (1994: 106)
sees British feminism as finding its base outside the universities, in the publishing
world, journalism, and politics, adding that British feminism attempts to analyse the
relationship between gender and class and to show how the dominant power
structures controlled by men influence all of society and oppress women. Despite all
the inner differences and disputes that can be noticed between American and British
feminist criticism, Showalter (1985a: 9) argues that the two criticisms try to recover
womens historical experiences as readers and writers. American feminist critic
Kolodny (1985: 144) considers the major task of feminist literary criticism as revealing
the sexual stereotyping of women in both literature and literary criticism, as well as
laying bare the incompleteness of the critical schools and methods established by male
writers with the aim of finding a fairer and more sensitive way of treating literary works
written by women writers. Kolodny goes on to emphasise further the historical
importance of feminist literary criticism for triumphantly bringing to the surface the
discarded and deliberately denigrated works of women writers as she states that under
its wide umbrella, everything has been thrown into question: our established canons,
our aesthetic criteria, our interpretative strategies, our reading habits, and most of all,
ourselves as critics and as teachers (1985: 145). Moreover, another American feminist
critic, Marcus (1982), clearly defines the major task of feminist criticism as opposing the
hegemony of the male theoreticians over literary theory. She calls for reformulation of
all the theories with structures and functions drawn up by male writers. Marcus takes
the case of literary theory in the United States as an example of male domination over
its goals and audience. She considers literary theory as a significant part of philosophy,
arguing that its most vigorous practitioners in the United States have been male

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November 2011

(Marcus 1982: 623-4). Similarly, Marcus underlines the fact that the slowly changing
situation of literary theory and its hostility towards women writers and their writing is
the extension of the new generation of phallocentric male critics who reject to admit or
take responsibility for what their male predecessors have done to women writers for
centuries. Marcus (1982: 624) deplores the unapologetic attitude of male critics towards
the unfair treatment they and their literary forefathers have made of women authors
throughout history, adding that:
They refuse to bear the burden of the sins of their literary fathers or to make
amends for centuries of critical abuse of women writers involving the loss,
destruction, bowdlerisation, or misevaluation of womens texts, diaries, letters,
and biographies.
Obviously, these principal tenets and facts encapsulated in Anglo-American feminist
criticism are pathways for the assessment of the poetry of Kurdish women poets, as they
can be used for the analysis of the content of the poetry in terms of social, political and
cultural implications and repercussions. They can also be critical in measuring the
amount of pressure this poetry has put on the patriarchal Kurdish society in defence of
the rights of Kurdish women. Meanwhile, this theory helps the exploration of those
numerous diverse and hidden questions and issues which are raised and pointed to in
the poetry of Kurdish women poets. It similarly assists with illuminating whether
Kurdish women poets are generally aware of the little importance given so far to their
efforts of producing poetry by academia, public readers, and critics. This theory also
puts the Kurdish literary canon2 in a fresh critical light, revealing the standards and
structure on which that canon was established, and uncovering those historical, cultural

The controversial issue of the literary canon is something almost all feminist critics are deeply engaged in. An
enormous number of feminist critics is against the standards apparently set by male writers, which decide which
author is to be included in the literary canon. Robinson (1983: 83) states that the literary canon embraces only an
author who meets generally accepted criteria of excellence. Meanwhile, she casts doubt on the validity and
fairness of such criteria, believing that they are not equally applied to all writers. With regard to the Kurdish literary
canon, it is necessary to point out that there is no official canon in Kurdish literature to bring it under question.
Nevertheless, by canon here I mean the academic syllabi and courses which are studied in the southern Kurdistan
universities and institutes, and, to some extent, the body of the works which are consensually conceived to be the
masterpieces of Kurdish literature.

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The Resurgence of Kurdish Womens Poetry

and social factors which are behind the extensive, ideologically-motivated exclusion of
Kurdish womens poetry from this male-dominated canon.
It is worth noting that the current condition of Kurdish womens poetry in southern
Kurdistan is similar to the situation of womens literature in America and Europe back
in the early nineteenth century where the voices of women writers were silenced by male
writers. Regrettably, the current situation of Kurdish womens literature, especially
poetry which is the most preferred genre of literature amongst Kurdish women, is
despairingly bad, and has only attracted a few Kurdish critics to cast a merciful eye on it.
Unlike Anglo-American womens or feminist movements, there are no particular
feminist associations or womens groups in southern Kurdistan who can raise the issue
of Kurdish womens literature. Moreover, active women or feminist critics are invisible
on the literary ground of southern Kurdistan. They cannot revitalise the dead or silenced
voices of the numerous Kurdish women poets who have emerged recently. This lack of
organised Kurdish women critics has left the poetry of Kurdish women poets at the
mercy of male critics who, as mentioned above, choose the poets on the basis of
common interests and belonging to the same regions they live in. However, this absence
of critical attention has not only affected womens poetry, but also literary texts written
by men, and there is an unmistakable and widespread outrage among Kurdish writers
over the marginalisation of the role of literary criticism in Kurdish literature. Kurdish
critic Ebda (2009) argues that Kurdish literary criticism has ignored all the literary
inventions. He regrets the fact that Kurdish writers hate to be criticised by critics and
that they consider any criticism of their work as an offence against them, a situation
which has brought the development of Kurdish literature to a dead end. While
responding to a question by Kurdistan aports Edeb Hner page about the
negligence shown by Kurdish critics towards the younger generation of Kurdish poets,
Ebda says:
The relationship between the old and new generation is weak and cold,
adding that the famous Kurdish critics we have do not accept criticism from

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the young generation, as they select poets for criticism on the basis of personal
relations (Ebda 2009: 5).
This crucially damaging dilemma in Kurdish literature has plainly laid many obstacles
ahead of the progress of the various genres of this literature, and it has slowed down the
process of the literatures internationalisation and its competitiveness with other world
literatures. Kurdish womens poetry has always been the major victim and scapegoat of
this ongoing crisis in Kurdish literature, and it has received the largest share of the
serious consequences of this crisis. Unfortunately, the patriarchal and opportunistic
attitude of Kurdish critics and criticism towards the poetry of Kurdish women does not
seem to be negative only inside southern Kurdistan, but even abroad, particularly in the
West. Seemingly, this ignorant view is held by the majority of the Kurdish critics who
operate within the diasporic Kurdish literary circles and who have contributed greatly to
the development of Kurdish literature in exile. Diasporic Kurdish woman poet oman
Herd (2006: 102), in an interview by the Kurdish Rahand (Dimension) magazine,
expresses her discontent with the Kurdish magazines and newspapers published abroad
in the late 1990s, which were highly reluctant to approach the works of Kurdish women
writers and assign some of the space of their pages to them. She argues that some of the
writers of these Kurdish journals publicised each others books and supported one
another, while remaining silent over the works of women (ibid.). Thus, if this was the
mentality of Kurdish critics abroad, who were expected to be more open-minded and
optimistic towards the works of Kurdish women, should anything positive be expected
from local critics, whose minds are literally awash with old Kurdish traditions and
norms that are inimical to women?
Importantly, according to a vast majority of Anglo-American feminist critics, any study
purely conducted on the works of women writers has to adopt a revisionist approach so
as to determine and demarcate those crucial factors which have instrumentally resulted
in largely marginalising not only the mediocre literary products by women, but their
masterpieces as well. This paper argues that Anglo-American feminist theory can help
us find out why Kurdish womens poetry is seldom heard of, read or tackled and written
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The Resurgence of Kurdish Womens Poetry

about by Kurdish critics. Feminist critic Friedman (1990, cited in Warhol and Herndl
2007: 724-5) identifies four strategies used by women poets to feminise the genre of
poetry: first, the making of the discourse of the satiric Other, the outsider who attempts
to sarcastically defeat the insider; second, the repossession of the public area from
where women have been mainly excluded via a discourse of history a (her) story in
which the inside is the outside and the outside is the inside; third, the creation of the
discourse of re-vision, where the outsider gets deep down into the discourse of the
inside with the aim of reshaping it; and fourth, the invention of a discourse of linguistic
experimentalism, a gynopoetic of the outside that establishes a new inside by turning
the inside, inside out. She believes that by using these four strategies, women poets aim
to blur the gender boundaries in order to place themselves as women writing inside a
tradition that has considered them as outsiders. To further clarify what revision means
in a critical and poetic context, Friedman borrows an explanation of the term provided
by the American woman poet and feminist critic Adrienne Rich as she defines it as the
act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new
critical direction (Friedman 1990, cited in Warhol and Herndl 2007: 730). In view of
this definition, this paper, similarly, recommends a journey through history to discover
the buried voices of Kurdish women poets and the reasons behind that burial act.
Additionally, it argues that a methodical study of Kurdish womens poetry written
between 1990 and 2009 is necessary in order to see if women poets of this period have
been speaking out against a deliberate neglect of their poetic works by Kurdish male
critics.
Gynocriticism
When speaking of American feminist criticism as led by Showalter, one must discuss her
notion of gynocriticism (1985b, cited by Barry 2009: 118) as an approach specific to the
analysis of texts being written by women writers. After the productive activities of
womens movements in the 1960s which resulted in great changes in the position of
women in society from different angles and in particular the status of women writers, a
shift of attention from androtexts (books written by men) to gynotexts (books written

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November 2011

by women) was made, with the aim of identifying the literary qualities and values of
womens writings (Barry 2009: 118). Interestingly, gynocritics, a term originally coined
by Showalter, refers basically to the study and analysis of texts and literary works
written by women. Showalter (1985c: 248) describes the basic topics and central issues
tackled by gynocriticism as the history, styles, themes, genres, and structures of
writing by women; the psychodynamics of female creativity; the trajectory of the
individual or collective female career; and the evolution or laws of a female literary
tradition.
Applying such a gynocritical approach to the study of Kurdish womens poetry is helpful
in isolating the poetry from the influences of the male tradition and displaying the
actual standing of this type of poetry in Kurdish literature. Instead of expressing strong
interest in or hate towards the male literature, gynocritics has a special programme
which aims to construct a female framework for analysing literature by women and
develop new paradigms underpinned by the study of womens experiences, rather than
fitting into models and theories designed and invented by male writers. In her famous
essay Toward a Feminist Poetics, Showalter further explains what she means by
gynocritics, stating that:
Gynocritics begins at the point when we free ourselves from the linear
absolutes of male literary history, stop trying to fit women between the lines of
the male tradition, and focus instead on the newly visible world of female
culture (Showalter 1985b: 131).
Based on this purely women-centred critical approach, a meticulous feminist analysis,
and close scrutinisation of Kurdish womens poetry in search of those feminine aspects
and characteristics of womens poetry that constitute an intrinsic part of the feminist
agenda of gynocritics, can do a fundamental service to this specific type of poetry.
Nevertheless, the application of gynocriticism to the poetry of Kurdish women poets
would be a great and serious challenge because it is unclear whether Kurdish women
poets have been able to establish and devise styles and techniques of poetry writing
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The Resurgence of Kurdish Womens Poetry

which are typically representative of womens experiences and situation in society.

Again, it will be of paramount importance to determine the proportion of Kurdish
women poets who have really decided to challenge the male literary tradition and, as
Showalter says above, attempt to free themselves from the linear absolutes of male
literary history.
In A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bront to Lessing (1977),
Showalter mentions three phases in the development of a specifically female tradition
which are tantamount to the evolutionary phases of any art labelled as subcultural.
Firstly, there is a protracted phase of copying and imitating the established patterns of a
tradition dominated by male writers and using its criteria of art and its attitudes
towards social roles in general. Secondly, there comes a phase of disagreement with and
rejection of these criteria and values and sheer support for the rights and privileges of
the minority, including a call for self-dependency. Thirdly, she introduces the phase of
the discovery of the self, an inward turning away from some of the reliance on
opposition, a hunt for the female identity. The right terminology that she uses for these
stages is Feminine, Feminist, and Female. Additionally, she identifies the phases as the
Feminine as the period from the appearance of the male pseudonym in the 1840s to the
death of George Eliot in 1880s; the Feminist phase as 1880 to 1920, or the winning of
the vote; and the Female phase as 1920 to the present, but entering a new stage of selfawareness about 1960 (1977: 13).
In this outline of the three phases of feminist criticism, Showalter places gynocritics in
the second phase since it comes after and develops from an earlier phase of feminist
critique which puts much emphasis on women as the writers of male texts. However, the
chief purpose of gynocriticism is to expand and reorganise the literary canon which has
been governed by male writers. Generally speaking, gynocritics believes that literary
canon (the collection of works which by an authoritative agreement have been
considered as the most important subjects of literary history, criticism, research and
teaching) has done a great deal of injustice to women writers by excluding their works
from the canon on the pretext of femininity and the spurious premise that women are

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November 2011

unable to write valuable and meaningful pieces of literature. The Chinese literary
scholar Yue (2007) highlights the important and historical role played by gynocriticism
in rediscovering many silenced and unknown women voices:
All in all, in gynocriticism, feminist studies have served to raise the status of
many female authors who have more or less been paid a scant regard by
scholars and critics and to bring into purview other authors who have been
largely or entirely overlooked as subjects for serious consideration. Some
feminists even have devoted their critical attention especially to the literature
written by lesbian writers, or that deals with lesbian relationships in a
heterosexual culture. The discovery of the general female writers and their
literary works makes feminist criticism, even the whole literary criticism,
more comprehensive (Yue 2007: 62).
To sum up, gynocritical studies conducted on womens literary works have generated
very positive results for the establishment of a literary tradition special to women.
Equally, they have given a marvellous taste to the reading of works by women, as
gynocriticism helps readers understand the genuine qualities and aesthetics of female
art and literature. The great attention gynocritics gives to the real world and its
inevitable facts has significantly elevated the status of women writers and put them
desirably and deservedly on equal terms with the male writers. While carrying out
academic research and studies on literary and non-literary works, feminist critics
adopting gynocriticism always keep in mind the historical, cultural, and social factors
which have been crucially effective in marginalising women writers, poets, novelists,
and critics. They employ logic in analysing these factors and attempt to put them in a
feminist context with the aim of mending the distorted image of women.
Challenges of Recognising Kurdish Womens Poetry
It is surely an irrefutable fact that the dominance of Kurdish male literature has been
able to undermine the influence of the sporadic literature of Kurdish women writers in
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The Resurgence of Kurdish Womens Poetry

general and poets in particular. This has been the reason why most of the women poets
who wished to write poetry in the middle of the twentieth century followed in the
footsteps of men and used the same male voice and themes in their poetry, which
greatly affected women poets success to find a style that could be used to express their
feelings, experiences and stories. Mukiriyan3 (1980: 12) states that Kurdish women
poets in the past had no choice but to imitate men because they could not find any
particular antecedent women poets to influence them and inspire them with womenrelated themes. She continues to say that:
such women poets, whether they liked it or not, were found under the impact
of a male writer whose style and structure had clearly reflected in their poetry,
or, in other words, their voices were immersed in the voice of that male writer
(ibid.).
Obviously, this lack of a specific womans voice and trend persists to a great deal even in
todays Kurdish womens poetry as the majority of the Kurdish women poets without fail
point out in interviews and press articles that they are influenced by specific Kurdish
male poets, mainly by the classical Kurdish poets such as Nal (1800-1856), Salim
(1805-1869), Mewlew (1806-1882), Kurd (1812-1850) and Mew (1830-1906).4 Most
of them, specifically the two defiant young poets, Ebduleman and Helebcey, widely
imitate the styles and poetic techniques used by these classical Kurdish poets.
Furthermore, they are proud of being inspired by these pioneers in expressing the bitter
reality of being a woman in a patriarchal society in their poetry.

Kurdistan Giw Mukiriyan (1948-) was born in Hewlr; she has a PhD in Kurdish linguistics and has written many
books and poems. Mukiriyan is the daughter of the famous Kurdish writer Giw Mukiriyan (1903-1977), who has a
special place in Kurdish literature. She is currently the head of the KDP-run Kurdistan Womens Union based in
Hewlr, the capital city of the Kurdistan Region.
4
These classical Kurdish poets who lived in the early years of the nineteenth century are the landmarks of Kurdish
poetry; they have made considerable influence on their successor Kurdish poets, and they have remained as the
source of inspiration for the current young generation of Kurdish poets, particularly those Kurdish women poets
who mostly write love and romantic poetry. However, Mukiriyan (1980:12) believes that throughout history, the
visible impact of such great poets has failed Kurdish women poets in giving them a special poetic voice of their own
that can represent their personalities, way of thinking, and life pattern disparate from the world of men.

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Meanwhile, there are some Kurdish women poets who, on the contrary, are rather more
influenced by foreign poets than Kurdish male poets, whether they are poets from
Western countries, particularly Britain and France, or the Middle East. A case in point is
those Kurdish women poets who have been living away for quite a long time in the
diaspora and have found themselves greatly inspired and enthused by non-Kurdish
voices. Kurdish critic Seac (2004: 66), making a critical reading of Nezend Begixans5
poetry book Stayi (Celebrations)6 (2004), points out the huge impact of the
contemporary Iranian woman poet Forugh Farrokhzad (1935-1967) in terms of bravery
and the expression of the sufferings of women on Begixans poetic imagination. He says
that Begixan, similar to Farrokhzad, invokes the painful and sorrowful moments of
earthly life in her poems.
It is worth noting that the situation of Kurdish womens poetry is highly embarrassing in
an age where there is a strong demand for equal rights of women in all the walks of life,
whether they are social, cultural, political, or literary. The particular selection and
design of the title of this paper comes as a straight challenge to the dominance of male
writers in Kurdish literature a situation which has resulted in Kurdish women poets
being hardly able to keep their heads above water and pass their messages through to
the literate society and the admirers of Kurdish poetry. Through the whole process of
literature review and survey for preparing this research, it is disappointing to see that
numerous books, anthologies, PhD theses, MA dissertations, research papers, articles,
commentaries and reviews have been made and written about the poetry of Kurdish
male poets, while only a few articles, reviews, and commentaries, and no PhD theses or
MA dissertations, have been produced so far on Kurdish womens poetry. Only one book
has been written on Kurdish womens poetry, and only very little and narrow space in a
very modest number of anthologies of Kurdish poetry has been assigned to the poetry of

Nezend Begixan (1964- ) is a Kurdish woman poet from Southern Kurdistan. She is currently living in France,
working as a researcher on the issue of violence against women, and has published several articles on this topic. She
has five poetry publications in Kurdish and one in English.
6
According to the Kurdish-Kurdish dictionary Ferheng xan (Shekhani Dictionary) (2009: 304), the word
Stayi means praise or thanking; however, the translation of this books title into Celebrations is the exact
translation the author herself has given to it in English. Therefore, it seems more logical and academic to keep the
authors translation here than the genuine meaning the word holds in Kurdish.

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The Resurgence of Kurdish Womens Poetry

Kurdish women. It is usually the last part of these anthologies that briefly covers
Kurdish women poets among a dozen of elaborately-discussed male poets. Some cases
in point are the recently published seven volumes of Mju Edeb Kurd (The History of
Kurdish Literature) by Xeznedar (2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006a, 2006b); Sabir
et al.s (2006) Modern Kurdish Poetry: An Anthology and Introduction; Berew Chan
ir end airk (Towards the Poetic World of Some Poets) by embar (2008); and
Dihoks (2008) end Strn Ge de Esman Helbesta N Ya Kurd de: Kirmanciya
Jr (Some Bright Stars in the Sky of Modern Kurdish Poetry: Sorani Dialect). In his
seven volumes which are mostly allocated to Kurdish poets in history, Xeznedar deigns
to include only three Kurdish women poets. They appear in his fourth volume, which
covers the history of Kurdish literature from the second half of the nineteenth century to
the early twentieth century, i.e. from 1851 to 1914. Moreover, the handful of Kurdish
women poets Xeznedar talks about in his fourth volume comes at the end of the book,
and he even labels them as a group of lesser known Kurdish poets. It is undeniable that
poetry writing by Kurdish women until the past two decades was a minority activity, and
that the strong desire for becoming a poet among women was rather discouraged by the
social environment controlled by the system of patriarchy in all the four parts of
Kurdistan. However, intermittently there have been some Kurdish women who have
used poetry writing as a means of fighting against the unjust social life fuelled by
patriarchy. This situation can be testified in the nineteenth century and the middle of
the twentieth century by the appearance of a group of defiant Kurdish women poets
such as Mestrey Kurdistan (1805-1847), Chan Ara (1858-1911), Xrde Baban (1940) and Xanim Resl Emed (1949- ), who were able to introduce high quality pieces into
the larger corpus of Kurdish poetry. However, only three of these women poets are
represented in the volumes of Xeznedar (2004), which undoubtedly demonstrates the
broad extent to which Kurdish women poets have been ignored.
Similarly, although Sabir et al.s (2006) anthology starts more promisingly, it adopts the
same attitude towards the poetry of Kurdish women: out of thirty modern Kurdish poets
they have selected for their anthology, only five of them are women. embars (2008)
anthology includes only one woman poet out of more than a dozen men poets, and

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November 2011

Dihoks (2008) work, just like Sabir et al. (2006), use five Kurdish women poets. This
lack of critical attention to the poetry of Kurdish women not only in anthologies, but in
books, literary journals and research works, and even in academia, has placed this type
of poetry in a ghetto within Kurdish literature. This focus on anthologies comes from the
fact that these works play a very crucial role in the introduction of women poets to the
readers and the public and bringing them together in a single body, which then helps
the incorporation of their poetic works in the literary canon. Gill (2007: 10) emphasises
this fact as she believes that anthologies of poetry play an important role in canon
formation and in the development of audience taste. Unfortunately, because almost
all the anthologists in Kurdish literature are male, womens poetry has always been
either unkindly overlooked or given a meagre share if compared to the widely covered
mens poetry. Kaplan7 (1975, cited by Gill 2007: 10) rightly states that poetry by women
has less frequently been anthologised because of subjects that do not appeal to male
anthologists. She adds that women poets have been ignored from those anthologies
edited by men mainly because of what they usually write about (Gill 2007: 11). Factually,
what Gill has raised in her argument about the deliberate exclusion of women poets
from the anthologies produced by male writers can be directly applied to the neglected
poetry of Kurdish women poets whose gloomy fate has unmistakably sprung from the
topics and issues it tackles as an unswerving reaction to the oppression women face in
the Kurdish society. For instance, Sabr (2008) identifies two paradoxical critical
stances towards the poetry of Kurdish women poets, one quite positive and constructive
and the other entirely the opposite. However, he has a completely different view on the
poetry of Kurdish women developed from the 1990s when he analyses the poem Be
Pns Jink (by a womans pen) by the Kurdish woman poet Kejal brahm Xidir8. His
analysis of Xidirs poem does not generally tie in with his inspiring comments on Kejal

Cora Kaplan (Queen Mary, University of London n.d.) is an honorary professor in the School of English and
Drama at Queen Mary. She is a feminist critic and theorist, particularly interested in class and race, whose works
mostly pay attention to the issues of aesthetic and politics in the writings of women in Britain from the late
eighteenth century through the middle of Victorian era.
8
Kejal brahm Xidir (1968- ) was born in the town of Qeladize in southern Kurdistan. Writing short stories and
poetry for the children in 1987 mark the beginning days of her literary career. She has a collection of 12 published
and unpublished books, and writes poems permanently for the Kurdish literary journals.

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The Resurgence of Kurdish Womens Poetry

Emed9s poem Be Tenreyek Kurt Srewe (dressed in a red short skirt) in the same
study, where he describes the poetry of Kurdish women poets of that period as
simplistic and discriminatory. Sabr (2008) significantly underplays the efforts and
literary influence of those Kurdish women poets who desperately struggle to defend
their female identity, stand firmly against the patriarchal traditions and norms, and
attempt to establish a literature of their own, devoid of the leverage and characteristics
of male writers. He believes that:
Womens poetry is a lot more like a talk than a poetic text; it is more about the
humiliation of men than endeavours to come to terms with them. In short,
womens literature has only widened the rift between women and men and
nothing more (Sabr 2008: 199).
Generally, it is this cynical and demeaning attitude towards Kurdish womens poetry,
assumed by the vast majority of Kurdish critics, which has led this type of poetry to be
out of readers sight and be placed in the darkest and lowest part of the history of
Kurdish literature. Besides the monolithic paternal structure of Kurdish literature, this
imprecise understanding of Kurdish women poets has resulted in their poetry being
rarely covered in Kurdish journals, literary circles, research and studies. Indubitably,
this open hostility shown by Kurdish male writers towards Kurdish women poets has
widely contributed to the exclusion of womens poetry from the canon of Kurdish
literature.
Conclusion
The historically significant developments and events of the last decade of the twentieth
century, generally in the Middle East and particularly in Iraq, have had a noticeable
impact on the political, economic, cultural, and literary map of the region. In literature,
9

Kejal Emed (1967-) was born in the city of Kirkk in Iraq; she was able to publish her poetry at the early age of
21, and has gained a reputation for being an outspoken Kurdish woman poet whose poetry has recently been
translated for the first time into English by the London-based Kurdish poet Choman Hardi in collaboration with
Mimi Khalvati under the title Poems (2008).

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November 2011

many great works have been created in reaction to the events and as a reflection of the
regions new realities. Evidently, the free southern Kurdistan, as part of Iraq, has also
been affected by such changes, and growth on various levels has been witnessed in this
part of the Kurdish land. A particularly interesting development in this region is a
dramatic progress in womens literature, especially poetry, in a society where womens
voices are rarely heard and their rights weakly protected. As such, Kurdish women poets
have considerably benefited from the freedoms of writing and expression obtained after
the liberation of southern Kurdistan in 1991 from the control of the defeated regime of
Saddam Hussein. Despite numerous challenges faced in the widely patriarchal Kurdish
society, they have managed to produce poetry every so often. The major challenge they
face is the lack of critical attention to their poetry and its exclusion in the Kurdish
literary canon. Interestingly, as part of the emergent literatures in the Middle East,
Anglo-American feminist criticism and its gynocritical approach, by way of their specific
focus on the neglected literary works of women, can play a productive role in bringing
the poetry of Kurdish women to the attention of academic and public readers. As a basic
model well fitting the situation of still undiscovered and never canonised Kurdish
womens poetry, this branch of feminist criticism, if applied properly, hugely minimises
the miseries and hopelessness of Kurdish women poets caused by the recklessness and
arrogance of Kurdish male critics. Besides, Kurdish literary critics need to be aware that
by neglecting the writings of women, a large part of the achievements of Kurdish
literature is wasted and buried in the age of gender equality. It is by means of AngloAmerican feminist criticism that the literary values and quality of Kurdish womens
poetry can be measured.

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The Resurgence of Kurdish Womens Poetry

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