Pomeps Conversations

On this week's podcast, Elisabeth Kendall speaks about her research on poetry by militant jihadists, particularly in Yemen. "There was so much poetry being produced by militant jihadist movements— and nobody was looking at it," says Kendall. "I found it initially online, but I didn't know that the online magazines as I found were also being passed around in hard copy on the ground. And I could tell that Yemen was a real hot spot for this, possibly because being the birth place essentially of Arabic poetry. It still was an oral culture, particularly in a desert environment. So I thought I'd go there and find out what was what was actually happening and how much still resonated on the ground." Kendall is a senior research fellow in Arabic and Islamic studies at Pembroke College, Oxford University. She is also a nonresident senior fellow with the Middle East Peace and Security Initiative and the Atlantic Council's Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security. "I sneaked in a little question about poetry i