ABSTRACT
In a country that is torn by so much strife, almost all of what is written, and this is even more true of poetry, is intricately connected to politics. As a result of the violence and political unrest in Afghanistan, a considerable number of poets and writers are located outside Afghanistan, in the West. This chapter is a study of the poetry written in English by Afghan women poets located mostly in the West, in the United States of America and Australia predominantly, as sites of protest. The poetry written by Afghan women poets deals predominantly with themes of displacement, loss and hope. The chapter also examines the way in which the lived reality of the Afghan way of life finds expression in the poetry written in English by Afghan women poets. For most of the Afghan refugee poets, poetry is a way of speaking of their lived experience, of their collective suffering and an attempt to become the voice of several who are unable to speak. At the same time, the poems are also extremely personal, a testimony to individual pain.
