19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Book Overview

Tell me how to live so many lives at once ...

Fowzi, who beats everyone at dominoes; Ibtisam, who wanted to be a doctor; Abu Mahmoud, who knows every eggplant and peach in his West Bank garden; mysterious Uncle Mohammed, who moved to the mountain; a girl in a red sweater dangling a book bag; children in velvet dresses who haunt the candy bowl at the party; Baba Kamalyari, age 71; Mr. Dajani and his swans; Sitti Khadra, who never lost her...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060504048
• ISBN13: 9780060504045
• Release Date: March 2005
• Publisher: Greenwillow Books
• Length: 142 Pages
• Weight: 0.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.0" x 7.3"
• Age Range: 13 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 8 and higher

Customer Reviews

What a wonderful book

This little - and I mean little, the book is pint sized - book is absolutely amazing. She is a wonderful poet, and, for someone whose life has been touched so much by the Middle-East and particularly by the pain in all the conflicts, she really expresses the emotions that all of us feel. I have preformed four or five of the poems in this book at competitions, and one of the things I love is that, for the most part, all her poems were originally in English. So you get to see and preform the simple beauty in the words along with the meaning. This is lost in other poets, such as Yehudah Amichai or Mahmoud Darwish, who originally wrote in Hebrew/Arabic. Just a note for anyone who cares: there's a beautiful poem called "Jerusalem" in this book that's also published all over the internet. If you buy "Words under Words," she has another poem called "Jerusalem," but it's a TOTALLY different poem. Still a good collection though :]

Verses about love and longing for lost and imaginary homelands

Naomi Shihab Nye's collection contains sixty poems about Palestinians and Middle East, about love and longing for lost and imaginary homelands. The poems are fragrant with spices of the Middle-East, flavors of figs and olives, and served with a tenderness of a grandmother talking to a grandchild, a five year old to his mother, an aged man to his beloved he unites with after a lifetime. In the world torn by religious and political conflicts, these poems represent an oasis of hope. It is the humanity of these verses, that leaps from the page like the memory of nineteen varieties of gazelle described in the title poem. The poems assume special significance in the context of post-September 11 world, for they contain a platter of understanding and taste served to assuage our need to be comforted. The solace is brought in by the mint green language of a poet born to a Palestinian father and an American mother. Perhaps the unique identity of Nye offers her perspectives about the Arab East and American West which her creativity has shaped into a narrative that offers respite from the reactionary rhetoric that dominates our daily thinking and actions. As an Indian residing in America, I sense a brotherhood with Nye's characters, who chase the voices, flavors, visions, music and familiarity that maps their nostalgic world. As a poet with Indian heart and Americanized mind, I find Nye, like Agha Shahid Ali, present our cultural and emotional duality in a lyric that is both powerful and poignant. The tapestry of inheritance of the East is laced with tales quite unknown in the West, and this wealth can nourish many a chasms that exist between the material and spiritual. It is voices like Amichai's and Nye's that remind us that the transcendental humanity within us can help us to outlive the wounds inflicted by the fanatic forces everywhere.

Naomi Shihab Nye

Nye is one of the best voices of the middle east for young readers. Her poetry and picture books are all evocative, raising issues of family, identity and tolerance. Her work is a rich resource for any teacher who hopes to offer students empathy and insight for the middle east.

"There's a place in this brain where hate won't grow."

This collection is a perfect example of the ability of a gifted poet to communicate difficult truths simply. Each piece is a work of art and sings in the voices of immigrants and immigrants' children and with the rhythms of life in the Middle East. This is a fantastic book in its own right and a great introduction to the talent and skill of Naomi Shihab Nye.

subtle stories

this book was recommended to me by a friend, so i wasn't sure what to expect. i am really glad to have bought it, the poems are like little stories someone tells you on the porch while it's getting dark. very vivid, i felt as if i knew these people...fathers, mothers, grandmothers, schoolchildren, old arab men selling crafts...