The tiny journalist Poems

Review by Booklist Review

Prolific and much-embraced, Nye (Voices in the Air, 2018) has received praise for her rollicking free verse and relentless appeals for global justice. The poems in this book start with Janna Jihad Ayyad, a seven-year-old girl who became known as the Youngest Journalist in Palestine after she began using her mother's cell phone to record scenes of unrest on the West Bank. Nye uses Janna's voice to launch a journey to Jerusalem, Gaza, and the Dead Sea and also to Ireland, Guangzhou, and Arkansas. Wherever she lands, Nye has a gift for depicting the plight of oppressed peoples that yields lyrics that resonate universally and yet retain local flavor as, for instance, she praises math students of Gaza, embroiderers of the West Bank, / lemon vendors, grapefruit-growers alike. Nye doesn't hesitate to engage politics directly, and there's no question about her stance in poems like Netanyahu, named after the Israeli prime minister: You don't need a skewer for broiling / or a paring knife / for seeing inside. Incisive and unsparing, Nye's caring poems will buzz in readers' brains long after reading them.--Diego Báez Copyright 2019 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

This latest collection finds the acclaimed Nye (Transfer), daughter of a Palestinian refugee, arguably disproving William Carlos William's adage that "it is difficult to get the news from poems." In 70 lyrical meditations populated by protesters, students, street sweepers, carpet weavers, and others seeking to endure the unendurable, Nye demonstrates poetry's ability to vividly portray the lives behind the headlines. The speakers of these poems are most effective when matter-of-fact: "I knew the man down the alley by the market/ who dragged his leg. He was out there, smoking,/ almost my whole life." Such snapshots immerse the reader in a Palestinian village community, bringing home the devastation of tear gas, bombs, and international indifference. Nye is critical of euphemistic reportage ("''Deadline for Demolition'/ as if cruelty had its own calendar/ a banker or a businessman") and at times plainspoken and aphoristic in the manner of Szymborska, effectively conveying conflict's human cost. In "No Explosions," the speaker observes, "To enjoy/ fireworks/ you would have/ to have lived/ a different kind/ of life." Even when using a more lyrical register, Nye's desire for poetry to break the fourth wall and challenge the reader's complacency is palpable. "When Facebook says I have 'followers,''" she says in the voice of Janna Ayyad, the young Palestinian activist from whose story the collection draws inspiration, "I hope they know I need their help." (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

National Book Award finalist Nye (19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East) explains that she joined Facebook to follow Janna Jihad Ayyad, who at age seven began documenting antioccupation protests in the occupied West Bank using her mother's smartphone, and this latest collection pays homage to the "youngest journalist in Palestine" while also reflecting on the journalism career of Nye's father and her own writing practices as they relate to her identity as a Palestinian American. From its dedication to "all young people devoted to justice and sharing their voices" all the way through to its final pages, the collection is brave and direct without ever losing the beautiful opacity of poetry. Nye draws on the tools of a poet with her careful deployment of litotes, her formal sophistication, and her economical language, and she counterbalances longer, more narrative poems with concise works that, in their brevity, have an almost atemporal accessibility, as in "No Explosions." VERDICT These are poems to read and reread. They are also reminders that words have power-and that when people use them wisely, as Janna does, we should support their work by listening and truly hearing the truths being bared.-Emily Bowles, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Morning Song The tiny journalist will tell us what she sees. She wants the world to be pink. From her vantage point everything is huge. But don't look down on her. She's bigger than you are. If you stomp on her garden each leaf curls around its own memory. Don't hide what you do. She sees through. Her treasures, the shiny buttons her grandmother loved. Her cousin, her uncle. There could have been a shirt... The tiny journalist notices each movement on the far away roads. Little puffs of dust find her first. They pretended not to see us. They came at night with weapons. She stares through a hole in the fence, barricade of words and wire. She feels the rising fire before anyone strikes a match. She has a better idea. Excerpted from The Tiny Journalist by Naomi Shihab Nye All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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