A 7th century poet of power

So much of our culture is dependent on the narratives we listen to, that we tell ourselves, create for ourselves, ascribe to others—we are so wedded to ideals and ideas, searching for labels, definitions, categories that will make our world feel less chaotic or unknowable. And yet those descriptors keep frames around us and between us, setting limits around what we can truly know.

I was thinking about this when I read of the poet al-Khansā’—of how what she did, what she created, was based in an oral tradition of spoken word performance, and of lamentation before it became a part of a textual tradition. Of how clearly her work—and those of many writers—gives voice to the silenced, acts in leading the public through the catharsis that is needed to mourn, to rage, to weep, or even to celebrate joy. In many cultures throughout millennia, women have publicly led the mourning of deaths from war with public chants, laments, and elegies. Some have argued that much of this may have been the ba…