Testimonies in Verses: Arabic Poetry as a Witness to Identity and the Syrian Resistance

Abstract

Arabic poetry has long been a repository of collective memory, preserving histories of resistance, resilience, and identity across generations. This paper traces poetry’s role as a witness to the Syrian revolution, exploring the connections between the pre-Islamic elegies of Al-Khansa and the Abbasid political verses of Al-Mutanabbi to the colonial defiance of Najib al-Rayyes, the revolutionary chants of the Arab Spring, and the spoken word performances of contemporary diaspora poets. My methodology combines literary criticism (النقدي الشعر), semi-structured ethnographic interviews with Arab college students, and personal narrative. I examine how poetry operates not only as a historical record but as a lighting torch, passed from generation to generation, illuminating the path for identity and resistance. By centering the voices of young Arabs in the diaspora, this research argues that Arabic poetry sits at the intersection of the personal and the political, remaining a transformative instrument for reconstructing identity, reclaiming voice, and resisting erasure.