The poem that truly had me hooked was “Red Brocade”. In the first stanza Nye starts, “The Arabs used to say,/when a stranger appears at your door,/fee him before three days/before asking who he is,/where he’s come from,/ where he’s headed.” She goes on to say that it is either because they will have strength by then or that it no longer matters because they are now friends. This reminded me of the book Three Cups of Tea, in which the author learns that you need to have three cups of tea with someone because the third time is when you become friends. To me this is a novel idea. Think if we as a culture/world made it our business to take the time and become friends with everyone.
As a whole it was a group of poems that I very much enjoyed. Nye was able to tell a story with her poetry. It gave me a look at the life of a young girl and how she views a world and cultural that she loves, and wants other people to be able to see the beauty in it. In the introduction Nye writes a lovely letter explaining that for her the Arab culture was one that she loved because of the passion and love her father had for it. However, she goes on to say that 9/11 changed the way that many people saw the Arab world. They were known for their generosity, and in the eyes of many that was forgotten in the aftermath of the attacks. Nye reminds us that we must always remember the “innocent citizens in the Middle East”. So, I believe that this collection was a way that Nye was able to show the world that the Arab world is still a beautiful place with people not very different from everyone else.
In my mind the first part of the book is dedicated to trying to give that beautiful Arab world and people a voice. They are poems about her childhood and memories. They allow the reader to look through the lens of an Arab girl. Nye uses her words to show that while there are differences in the cultures, some things are very similar. Much of Nye’s memories come in the form of reminiscing about her family, and the time that she spent with them. Her father and grandmother are two people that she continually looks to for inspiration. It is not just in her poetry about her family, the similarities are seen in the desire for peace. One poem that really stuck out was “Those Whom We Do Not Know”. At the beginning of the second part she says that she supports everyone no matter what they look like or what they do. The last lines of that stanza go on to say, “If we have killed no one/ in the name of anything good or bad/may light feed our leafiest veins.” To Nye it is obvious that nothing matters but peace. This is an idea that people in every culture strive for and people in the Middle East are no different.
While there are endless positives for 19 Varieties of Gazelle, it all comes down to “how will this group of poems connect with students”? In terms of writing I feel that the students will find the text very accessible. The poetry does not read like poetry. They do not need to look for things like rhyme schemes and alliteration. It is more like a collection of short stories written in poetic form. They are small glimpses into the life and beliefs of a young Arab American. Nye does a great job using these stories to give a well rounded image that I believe many students would be able to connect with given the chance. They will see not an Arab girl, but a girl that loves her family and has hopes and ambitions. There are a few things that might lose some of the students such as the fact that while it is told like a group of short stories, in the end it is poetry. This fact itself will scare some away. Another issue that some students might struggle with is choosing how to read the book. While at times it reads like a story, there is not a real storyline. So students who are drawn to the voice of Nye, might get lost in trying to figure out what she is trying to say with such a wide collection of poetry. I think in teaching the text I would have the students focus a on themes and images. These are two things with a continuing throughout the text, and which I feel the students will be able to pick out. Without this focus I fear that many students would get lost in the book.
Overall, this is a great book of poems that I feel gives voice to culture that is often misunderstood. I feel that if students give 19 Varieties of Gazelle a chance they would be rewarded by a powerfully moving collection of poems that speak to the need for peace and the hope that we can forget our differences see each other as beautiful people.
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Alex,
ReplyDeleteI especially enjoyed reading this post because we had different experiences reading these poems. We both enjoyed them, but where you felt that they gave a sense of "commonality" among people, projecting Arabs as "not that different" from others, I experienced many of the poems as romanticizing or exoticizing the culture. I am not making a judgement call here -- I thoroughly enjoyed the poems. They were beautiful and did much to remind a Western reader like me that this Middle Eastern culture has been misrepresented by the world at large. Nye wanted to set things straight, I think -- at least in the way that she remembered.
I think anytime someone takes a look back into the past, into a culture or part of our lives we have long left behind, there is a tendency to romanticize, and I feel like Nye MAY have done this. But who am I to say? This is what she remembers, how she remembers it, and it is poetry after all. Like you, I was drawn to the "Red Brocade" and the message of hospitality. Think a lot of the poems reflected the theme of hospitality, a characteristic of Arab culture that does not appear on the news or in pop culture here.