Eighteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

Samih al-Qasim is one of the most recent prominent Palestinian poets. Al-Qasim has published six series of poems that are well known in the Arab world. This confirms not only that it is worthy to investigate deeply and academically Palestinian commitment and identity throughout poems of the poet, but also that it is significant to include him within the top Arab Palestinian poets in despite of his being Israeli citizen. This paper explores to what extent the poet was committed to the Palestinian goals and agenda throughout poetry as well as to explore the styles and techniques in which the poet employed poetry in order to focus the Palestinian belonging and identification of the Palestinians in Israel. Methodologically, this paper will literary analyze some considerable poems of the poet looking in-depth critically and objectively. Moreover, this article relies on several poems of the poet because they are much relevant to the aimed discussion. By addressing both commitment and identity, this article hopes to contribute to a fuller understanding of Palestinian poets of 1960s to 2000s.