Book: You and Yours:
Author: Naomi Shihab Nye
Edition: 1st Edition, Paperback
Read: August 2009
81 pages
Rated: 2 out of 5
Why a “2” rating? Is it a bad book? Is this book just not for me? Does Nye not say anything worthwhile? Is poetry not something I get? Is this poetry?
Questions I pose for myself. Poetry sound wonderful to me—being able to express thoughts beyond words on the paper. I just don’t see the depth in most of the 49 poems presented. They seem more words on a page, rather than opening my eyes to something beyond. The thoughts seem more prosaic, along with the words.
So is the problem me or Nye?
Thoughts:
One of the two places which somewhat succeed for me was in the poem, Fold. She talks about the proclivity with words, small and little, the diminutive tendency in a world given often to sprawling and big. This reminded me of the lostness those of us have who are pebbles—trying to make small ripples in a big pond.
The other piece I found was in the poem Don Chu Go. Nye says to use your voice, cry of in pain, injustice. While a common thought, it is expressed ragged and well like the thought should be expressed.
The book’s title comes from the poem, During A War. She looks at who “you” and “yours” are. She has received a letter from a friend during a war—I am assuming Iraq or Afiganistan. She asks the question, who is “yours”? Where does “yours” stop? Good questions. There she falls in her responses—this is where either I do not understand or she does not provide something in continuity with the question.
So which is it, she or me?
Notes from my book group:
References:
- Bill Moyers NOW Interview from Oct 11, 2002: http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_nye.html
- Naomi Shihab Nye Letter to a Terrorist: http://godlas.myweb.uga.edu/shihabnye.html
- Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/You-Yours-American-Poets-Continuum/dp/1929918690
- Publisher’s Site: http://www.boaeditions.org/bookstore/details.php?prodId=188&category=0&secondary=&keywords=
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