Naomi Shihab Nye Essay

Naomi Shihab Nye’s collection of poetry teaches the reader that the people of the Middle East are human, too. After 9/11, many people’s opinions of people from the Middle East changed significantly in a negative way. I think that a lot of people were worried about other potential attacks happening in the United States. Even now, because of recent events, many people feel threatened and they are scared of what is going to happen next. Nye’s poems remind everyone that not every person from the Middle East is threat. As she says in the introduction of her book, “A huge shadow had been cast across the lives of so many innocent people and an ancient culture’s pride” (Nye xv). Through this book, she wants to convey that they have their own lives and feel misrepresented by extremist actions.

I chose the three poems “Stone House”, “How Long Peace Takes”, and “The Address Book of a Lonely Man”. For me, “How Long Peace Takes” represented how long inner peace will take, “Stone House” is about having a space just for yourself that is personal, and “The Address Book of a Lonely Man” created a sad and nostalgic feeling. Each of these poems

conveyed a certain feeling that I also wanted to communicate in my poems, so they were perfect for this assignment.
My vision of peace is one where everyone feels welcome and is able to communicate peacefully.

I think that my poems focus in on the feeling of wanting to be loved and feel like they are included in a community. They are somewhat based off of the reaction to the end of China’s One Child Policy. When I found out that that policy was gone, my mom had shown me an article written by a woman who was adopted from China during the time that China’s One Child Policy was still in place. It was about her reaction to the end of this law and it also described other Chinese adoptees’ thoughts as well. I know a lot of girls who were adopted from China when they were really young and I think that it is interesting how different each of their feelings are about being adopted. Because of this, I wanted to write about some different reactions I have

seen.
For each poem, I tried to implement the feeling of wanting to be loved, however, the most dominant image I chose to include in the poems were angry images to convey the anger and frustration that some people feel about the end of the One Child Policy and about being adopted. I think through some of the lines I was able to convey some of the feelings that I wanted people to see. I had not actually planned to write all of the poems with an angry tone, but it turned out to be an easier emotion to write about and a way to let of some feelings.