Beyond the Canon: Palestinian Poetic Resistance in the Aftermath of October 7, 2023

Resistance literature embodies the extensive efforts of marginalized communities subjected to colonial domination, especially within the context of Palestine, to regain freedom. Previous research examined resistance literature, emphasizing canonical authors such as Ghassan Kanafani, Mahmoud Darwish, and Fadwa Tuqan. However, the attack on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023, has brought to light noncanonical Palestinian writers who have confronted the harsh realities of genocides perpetrated by the Israeli military and allied forces. These young authors, intimately involved in this atrocious conflict, offered a novel viewpoint on resistance literature that has yet to be explored. The present study aims to investigate the noncanonical writings of resistance in Refaat Alareer's poem"If I Must Die" (2023) andYasmin Abusayma's "Memories in the Rubble" (2024).The present study employs a qualitative technique, utilizing postcolonial notions derived from Edward Said's Orientalism, particularly the notion of 'othering' (1978), and Frantz Fanon's 'On Violence' from The Wretched of the Earth (1963) as well as ParmentersGiving Voice to Stones (1994) to examine the developing dissenting voices. The present study concludes that the poems of Alareer and Abusayma, despite being noncanonical, efficaciouslypropagate a discourse of resistance against the false narratives perpetuated by Global Mass Media, which have justified the murder of Palestinians under the pretext of combating terrorism following the attacks on October 7, 2023.