Photo courtesy of Milwaukee 4 Palestine

A lifelong poet, Sawsan Rizeq uses poetry to speak out about the genocide of Palestinians. 

Creative expression is fundamental to solidarity movements everywhere. Visual artists, musicians, filmmakers and poets often find their voices in the struggle by creative means, reflecting sentiments that may be too difficult or complex to convey with regular words. Sawsan Rizeq, a Palestinian organizer with the group Milwaukee 4 Palestine, is a lifelong poet who began sharing her work with others for the first time this past year.

“I just want to humanize my people,” Rizeq affirms. “I think that’s what my poetry is now. You would do the same. I don’t know why people forget that.”

Sawsan Rizeq has a Master’s Degree in creative writing from Southern New Hampshire University. She says she tries to write every day for 10 to 15 minutes.

“I always expressed myself best in writing than verbally,” she adds. “It’s therapy.”

Art cultivates a sense of community and interconnectedness, which is precisely what colonial, imperialist powers fear. It effectively becomes the lifeblood of a struggle, linking the lived experiences of one to another and so on. Rizeq cites the watermelon, a symbol of Palestinian resistance, as a prominent example of such.

“Where did the watermelon come from?”, she asks, rhetorically. “No Palestinian flags? OK, then we’ll show our identity through our art. “No, you can’t use those colors.” It became part of the resistance because they took away everything else. People can take away a lot of things from you, but they can’t take away what you learn.”

Photo by Kamal Moon

In 2023, the Israeli ministry of National Security banned the Palestinian flag in public places. The watermelon has become an symbolic expression of the Palestinian flag colors to circumvent potential censorship and show solidarity with Palestinians.

“I was stuck in this whirlwind.”

Rizeq has been writing poetry for fun and decompression since she was young, but it was not until after October 7 last year, when the Israeli genocide of Palestine escalated, where she found poetry taking on a much greater role in her life.

She remembers hearing what people were saying on the news and what they were saying at work. “It was like a flashback of my whole life, with the dehumanization of Arabs and how you have to explain yourself. I was stuck in this whirlwind of defending my people and explaining antisemitism.”

Those visceral emotions were difficult to verbalize. The laborious and repetitive conversations where Rizeq felt she had to justify her existence as a Palestinian wore her out.

“People have been taught facts differently, and their textbooks don’t represent the Arab world (or a lot of the world) in an accurate way,” she adds.

Ready to share poetry about Palestine

Rizeq decided to put what she was feeling into a poem. The first one she wrote after October 7, titled We Used to Want Peace, she sent to her coworkers. By reading it, they would hopefully put themselves in a Palestinian’s shoes. It may have been a risky move, but Rizeq could not keep going to work everyday putting on a face. Many ended up receptive to what she had to say. 

“We are more than what the news represents about us, and I was so sick of the narrative that it’s two sides that don’t get along,” she continues.

A young Rizeq in Palestine wearing a traditional thobe

Poetry has become not just a personal hobby for Rizeq but an outlet to share stories with others from the lens of a Palestinian woman in diaspora, channeling intense sensations like grief and anger but also joy and hope.

Rizeq attended her first Milwaukee 4 Palestine event shortly thereafter. At a rally held by the group last December at Milwaukee Public Market, she publicly shared We Used to Want Peace on the microphone, recalling, “I didn’t just read it, I screamed it from the depths of my soul.”

Milwaukee 4 Palestine recently launched a divestment campaign against Derco Aerospace, a Lockheed Martin subsidiary that repairs and distributes engines for Israeli’s F-16 fighter jets, the primary aircraft used in Israeli bombardments of Gaza. The group is having periodic demonstrations outside Derco headquarters, demanding that the company immediately halt the repair and distribution of the F-100 engines, terminate their contract with Pratt & Whitney, stop war profiteering and leave their parent company. Follow Milwaukee 4 Palestine on Instagram for updates.

Reminiscing of Palestine

Rizeq typically pieces poems together over time as thoughts, inspirations and metaphors occur to her, which she compiles into notes in her phone. In her poem, What Are We Fighting For? Rizeq details the warm, beautiful imagery of Palestinian homes and lands. She wrote it after seeing video after video of her people in the streets of Gaza, senselessly being forced to prove their grief to the world:

From the blessed earth that gave us fig and olive trees  

From the morning rooster to the shepherd praying on his knees

From Hisham’s Palace to the Dome of the Rock

From the sacred churches to the highest mosque

It’s the welcoming fragrance of steamy mint tea

The beautiful shores of the Mediterranean Sea

The detailed stitching of Tete’s colorful thawb

The smell of musk of Jido’s Friday robes

To strangers it’s the hospitality as we break bread

To friends it’s the safety of a place to rest your head

To family, well if you’ve been to a Palestinian home then you know you have a bed

It’s the birthplace of poets like Mahmood Darwish and Rafaat Alareer

The land of extraordinary women like Shireen AbuAqlah, Khalida Jarrar, Muna Kurd and Ahed Tamini

Where the heart thumping stomps of freedom dancing makes the ground shake

Where wedding dabkes keep everyone happily awake

It’s the key to the home we hold on tight

It’s the black and white scarves that drape over us as we fight

It’s the folk songs our mommas sing to us at night

It’s the watermelon with its colors black, red, green and white

Freedom is home and home is free

And in this land forever we will be

Photo courtesy Dr. Robert Ashmore

Rizeq reminisces of being in Palestine when she was young, standing atop a hill overlooking a valley and calling out her childhood friend’s name, noting that many Palestinians across the diaspora have similar memories to one another. “There’s so much that we collectively love about Palestine, like the smells and sounds,” she explains.

Some pieces Rizeq has written for specific events. For example, “How Do You Tell A Father to Say Goodbye to His Baby Girl?” Rizeq wrote for a march after witnessing a horrible video on social media of a crying father holding his dead daughter. “I wrote that so he wouldn’t just be another story buried in the feed,” she says, tearing up. “I did that for him, and I don’t even know his name.”

In another poem, “I See Sprinkles,” Rizeq yearns for the days of a Free Palestine. She wrote it as an ode to her Milwaukee comrades and community, inspired by seeing Palestine stickers plastered everywhere while on a recent trip to Europe:

One day, you and I will speak of Palestine 

And it won’t be of a distressed mother giving birth to her stillborn child

Without her kidnapped husband and without medical care

Instead we’ll speak of a mother feeling safe

As she welcomes her new baby girl

And her doting husband caresses her hair

One day we won’t speak of grandfathers 

Bidding farewell to their lifeless grandchildren pretending they’re asleep

Instead we’ll tell stories of elders tucking in rambunctious little ones 

With the promises of sweet treats

One day instead of reporting of children being amputated

Under the light of a cell phone and anesthesia free

We’ll rave of their soccer games and childhoods that are carefree

One day maybe instead of digging mass graves

We’ll go back to celebrating graduations and wedding seasons and henna parties

One day without walls, without checkpoints, without military brutality

One day my people will live and die with dignity

I pray every day for those someday’s and maybe’s

And despite the murky waters of racism

Drowning the voices of justice and peace

I see those who go against the monstrous current

Staying afloat, grasping on truth and humanity

I see it, hope through the fog

Like sprinkles of confetti all over towns and cities

It’s a fist pump at a rally

It’s an ally wearing a kuffiyeh to support Pali

It’s the BDS movement staying strong

It’s my fellow comrades pulling me along

You see the sprinkles I see?

It’s not only about freeing them but freeing you and me

From media and manipulation and political lies

As you breathe in, open your hearts and open your eyes

And let’s stay steadfast

Not for those maybe’s but for those will be’s

Let’s continue to make worldwide confetti

Photos courtesy of Milwaukee 4 Palestine

(On left) Representing Milwaukee 4 Palestine, Rizeq speaks in front of Democratic Party office in downtown Milwaukee on June 3, protesting President Biden’s line of a red line after the Rafah refugee camp bombardment.” (On right) On June 30, Rizeq takes the mic at a Unity march with the organizers of UMMA (Unity Milwaukee Muslims for Action)  bringing awareness and solidarity between Palestinians and Sudanese.

With that piece, Rizeq affirms that the Palestine solidarity movement is growing and that none of their work is in vain. “That one I was really afraid I was going to break down while I was reciting,” she mentions. “I practice in front of my kids and I break down in front of my kids. I think I do better, surprisingly, in front of crowds than in an intimate setting.”

In February, Milwaukee Liberation Center hosted the event Ounadikom featuring local Palestinian poets Rizeq and Tasneem Jassar as well as traveling Gazan poet Yahya Ashour. A quote from Ashour that night sticks with her: “Don’t expect hope from my poem; I need hope from your actions.”

While not actively pursuing the publication of her work at this time, Rizeq plans to continue reading and sharing her poetry with others as she sees fit. “It’ll just go with the flow of the movement,” she assures. Follow Sawsan Rizeq on Instagram to get in touch.