“Why should it be a surprise that people find solace in literature? Literature slows us down, cherishes small details.…We need literature for nourishment and noticing, for the way language and imagery reach comfortably into experience, holding and connecting it to ourselves.”
Also, if you haven't read the letter that she wrote after 9/11, you should. It's on the portal. And if you don't know much about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, you might want to do some research. A lot of Nye's poetry deals with her identity as a Palestinian- American and her experience navigating two cultures. But her poetry also delves into her cultural and family heritage and the experience of people living in Palestine.
Here are two more poems:
Also, if you haven't read the letter that she wrote after 9/11, you should. It's on the portal. And if you don't know much about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, you might want to do some research. A lot of Nye's poetry deals with her identity as a Palestinian- American and her experience navigating two cultures. But her poetry also delves into her cultural and family heritage and the experience of people living in Palestine.
Here are two more poems:
Arabic Coffee
It was never too strong for us:
make it blacker, Papa,
thick in the bottom,
tell again how the years will gather
in small white cups,
how luck lives in a spot of grounds.
Leaning over the stove, he let it
boil to the top, and down again.
Two times. No sugar in his pot.
And the place where men and women
break off from one another
was not present in that room.
The hundred disappointments,
fire swallowing olive-wood beads
at the warehouse, and the dreams
tucked like pocket handkerchiefs
into each day, took their places
on the table, near the half-empty
dish of corn. And none was
more important than the others,
and all were guests. When
he carried the tray into the room,
high and balanced in his hands,
it was an offering to all of them,
stay, be seated, follow the talk
wherever it goes. The coffee was
the center of the flower.
Like clothes on a line saying
you will live long enough to wear me,
a motion of faith. There is this,
and there is more.
make it blacker, Papa,
thick in the bottom,
tell again how the years will gather
in small white cups,
how luck lives in a spot of grounds.
Leaning over the stove, he let it
boil to the top, and down again.
Two times. No sugar in his pot.
And the place where men and women
break off from one another
was not present in that room.
The hundred disappointments,
fire swallowing olive-wood beads
at the warehouse, and the dreams
tucked like pocket handkerchiefs
into each day, took their places
on the table, near the half-empty
dish of corn. And none was
more important than the others,
and all were guests. When
he carried the tray into the room,
high and balanced in his hands,
it was an offering to all of them,
stay, be seated, follow the talk
wherever it goes. The coffee was
the center of the flower.
Like clothes on a line saying
you will live long enough to wear me,
a motion of faith. There is this,
and there is more.
My Grandmother in the Stars
It is possible we will not meet again
on earth. To think this fills my throat
with dust. Then there is only the sky
tying the universe together.
Just now the neighbor’s horse must be standing
patiently, hoof on stone, waiting for his day
to open. What you think of him,
and the village’s one heroic cow,
is the knowledge I wish to gather.
I bow to your rugged feet,
the moth-eaten scarves that knot your hair.
Where we live in the world
is never one place. Our hearts,
those dogged mirrors, keep flashing us
moons before we are ready for them.
You and I on a roof at sunset,
our two languages adrift,
heart saying, Take this home with you,
never again,
and only memory making us rich.
on earth. To think this fills my throat
with dust. Then there is only the sky
tying the universe together.
Just now the neighbor’s horse must be standing
patiently, hoof on stone, waiting for his day
to open. What you think of him,
and the village’s one heroic cow,
is the knowledge I wish to gather.
I bow to your rugged feet,
the moth-eaten scarves that knot your hair.
Where we live in the world
is never one place. Our hearts,
those dogged mirrors, keep flashing us
moons before we are ready for them.
You and I on a roof at sunset,
our two languages adrift,
heart saying, Take this home with you,
never again,
and only memory making us rich.
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