Mariam Rasheed
Published Poet, Writer, Refugee & Women’s Rights Activist
Mariam Rasheed is a spoken word poet from Alexandria, Egypt. At the age of 18, she moved to Berlin in 2015. For as long as she can remember, she has consumed a lot of poetry, but never produced any herself. Berlin gave her a gift that Alexandria could not offer her: a reason to believe that she, too, could be a poet. Growing up as an Arab girl, she was always told what she must not be, but rarely what she can be. The words she had accumulated found their way out in brushstrokes. Abstract painting was her life and what she thought would always remain her preferred form of expression. What is the threat of speaking without words? A pool of colors, harmonious and beautiful in its composition, could be seen as whatever its viewer asks of it. How many will consider it a revolution? Rasheed is still juggling brushes and bursting dry paint on her skin, but poetry is now her loudest cry.
Check out her work here: