For the month of July, we feature Rafeef Ziadah’s “We teach life, sir.”

The Palestinian poet Rafeef Ziadah is a spoken word artist and an activist for Palestinian human rights. She is also a lecturer in comparative politics of the Middle East at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Her spoken word performances are most compelling, drawing in her audiences to the emotions and powerful opinions she expresses about Palestine, freedom, justice, war, racism, and much more. Civil rights activist Angela Davis says that Ziadah’s words “hit you right in the heart. They are more powerful than any weapon.”

Ziadah has released three albums, the most recent being “Three Generations,” which features all ages of Palestinian women and their struggles in the face of war and occupation (maintaining “joy and love against skies of steel”), as well as their proud triumphs, and ending the poem with the assertion, “I am three generations of women who made it. We made it.”

This month’s poem by Rafeef Ziadah is “We Teach Life, Sir.” The poet says in the beginning of her performance that she wrote it in response to a journalist who asked her, “Don’t you think it would all be fine if you just stopped teaching your children to hate?” This was during one of Israel’s wars on Gaza and Ziadah was serving as a Palestinian media spokesperson. Her incisive commentary on how the media ignores the humanity of Palestinians and chooses not to portray the truth in the Palestinian struggle is captured in this moving poem, which starts with, “Today, my body was a TV’d massacre made to fit into sound bites and word limits.” Her characteristic repetition of words and lines reinforces the message she aims to impart. Ziadah’s repeated refrain, “We teach life, sir,” harkens to Mahmoud Darwish’s famous line, “We have on this Earth what makes life worth living,” which ends with the words, “I deserve life” or “I am worthy of life.” In the same way, Ziadah’s poem is an affirmation of life for Palestinians, having the right to live life, deserving life, and loving life. Yet she goes a step beyond and asserts that Palestinians have experienced so much in life so that they are able to teach life. Their most prized principle as Palestinians is life itself, its continuation and its celebration. Ziadah’s final words of the poem are, “We Palestinians wake up every morning to teach the rest of the world life, sir.”

Click here to watch the poem.

UPA’s Monthly Poetry Collection is curated by Palestinian-American poet and UPA supporter Zeina Azzam. On the first Tuesday of each month throughout 2021, a poem related to Palestine will be posted on our blog and social media pages.

Zeina Azzam is a Palestinian American poet, writer, editor, and community activist. Her poems are published widely in literary journals, anthologies, and edited volumes. Zeina’s chapbook, Bayna Bayna, In-Between, was released by The Poetry Box on May 18, 2021. She holds an M.A. in Arabic literature from Georgetown University.