19 pages • 38 minutes read
Naomi Shihab NyeThe Words Under the Words
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1995A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
“My Grandmother in the Stars” by Naomi Shihab Nye (1994)
This poem begins with the line “It is possible we will not meet again / on earth” (Line 1-2) and describes memories she has of herself and her grandmother sitting on a roof with their “separate languages adrift.” This poem is another tribute to her grandmother after her passing at the age of 106.
“Jerusalem” by Naomi Shihab Nye (1994)
This poem opens with an epigraph that states, “Let’s be the same wound, if we must bleed.” In the poem the speaker tells a story of her father getting hit by a stone when he was a boy and how hair would not grow in that spot. She makes a parallel to having a place in her own brain where “hate will not grow.” As the title suggests, the poem is about Jerusalem, and in it the speaker professes a wish that people stop fighting with one another. As for who has “suffered the most” she says she does not care. She’s interested in “people getting over it.”
“My Father and the Fig Tree” by Naomi Shihab Nye (2002)
In this poem the speaker tells a story about her father’s love of fig trees, which are prominent in his home country of Palestine but he could not find in the United States. On the surface it is a poem about missing a certain type of fruit, but underneath the literal meaning of the poem it is about displacement and the hardship of being a refugee in a foreign land. It illustrates what Shihab Nye learned about appreciating little things and about the longing for other places, as she grew up with a father who had been forced to flee his home country.
Further Literary Resources
“To Any Would-Be Terrorists” by Naomi Shihab Nye (2001)
Written after 9-11, Naomi Shihab Nye shared this piece of writing directly to the internet, and her friends passed it around until it was widely read. In the letter, Nye urges people not to become terrorists and to recognize the humanity of those they might otherwise want to attack. She says she wrote this as a letter because she wanted it to feel more personal and accessible to anyone who would read it.
“Re/VIEW: Naomi Shihab Nye” by Kalia Kelmenson
Naomi Shihab Nye discusses her religious background in this interview with Spirituality and Health magazine. Although her father was raised in the Muslim faith, he ultimately left the religion. Her mother did the same with her Lutheran religion. Nye herself is a practitioner of Zen Buddhism. This gives some insight into her experiences with religion and how the poet is able to understand and give voice to people of different faiths and give credence to all. Though her father had given up his Muslim faith early on, it is clear from “The Words Under the Words” that Nye’s grandmother remained a steadfast practitioner of Islam and found solace and joy in it.
Nye discusses her need to build “bridges” between people and cultures. She discusses the way having a father who was both a journalist and a Palestinian refugee informed her writing, her reading of the news, and her way of seeing the world. Nye shares several poems about friends and relatives from the Middle East and talks about her own experience of traveling the region where she says the most important word is “hospitality.” This reading is indicative of the way Nye uses her poetry to combat stereotypes of Arabs and humanize people from different backgrounds.
“Poems of Muslim Faith and Islamic Culture” by Poetry Foundation
In the previous resource, “Meet the Poet,” Nye tells her audience that she intentionally reads poets and writers from backgrounds that are different from hers. She says she wants to know more about how other people think and she recommends to her audience that they do the same. She names specifically the Palestinian Poet Saadi Youssef. Their works are collected here, among the works of other contemporary poets of the region where Shihab Nye’s grandmother lived.
Listen to Poem
Larry Hollist is the creator of Poetry in a Prius on the Mountain Man Poetry Channel. In this, episode 286, he reads “The Words Under the Words.”
Related Titles
By Naomi Shihab Nye
