Words Under the Words: Selected Poems

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Words Under the Words gathers into a single volume the finest poems by one of the most exciting, accessible poets in America today. This long-awaited collection draws from Naomi Shihab Nye's three critically acclaimed Different Ways to Pray, Yellow Glove, and National Poetry Series winner, Hugging the Jukebox.

Genres: Poetry, Middle East, Race, Nonfiction, United States, School, American

160 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1994

About the author

Naomi Shihab Nye was born to a Palestinian father and an American mother. During her high school years, she lived in Ramallah in Jordan, the Old City in Jerusalem, and San Antonio, Texas, where she later received her B.A. in English and world religions from Trinity University. She is a novelist, poet and songwriter.

She currently lives in San Antonio, Texas. She was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2010.

Reviews

[Joanna Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

These poems are really beautiful.. here is one for you.

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

[Harley · Rating 5 out of 5]

With this book, Naomi Shihab Nye has become one of my favorite contemporary poets. The book is filled with phenomenal lines and images. In my first reading of the 104 poems, I marked 30 poems that I wanted to read again.

Here are the beautiful opening three lines of Biography of an Armenian Schoolgirl.

"I have lived in the room of stone where voices become
bones buried under us long ago. Where you could dig
for centuries uncovering the same sweet dust."

In the poem, At Otto's Place, Naomi writes:

"Could I live like this? I ask myself
and I know, somehow, I must.
More and more my life is peeling paint,
straight horizons.
More and more my name dissolves in the air,
salt, something invisible I taste,
and forget."

I love the phrase, "my life is peeling paint." What a powerful image!

In the poem, The House in the Heart, Nye writes:

"This body we thought so important,
it's a porch, that's all.
I know this, but I don't know
what to do about it."

Our bodies are a resting place — a place from which we look out at the world. We know many things but knowledge alone is not enough. We need to learn what to do to change things. Nye packs so much into these four lines.

In the poem, Jerusalem, Nye writes:

"To live without roads seemed one way
not to get lost. To make maps
of stone and grass, to rub stars together
and find a spark."

It is only because we have roads that we get lost. If we did not have roads to follow, we would not lose our way. So often we get so focused on where we want to go that we forget where we are. Maybe our goals and dreams are not as important as we think.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves to read poetry as well as anyone who loves words.

[Kerri Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

These poems are light in a world that rushes forward with or without us. These poems are heart and habit. Grace and tenacity. Flooded with honesty. These poems are some of the best and brightest I know and any time spent with them always feels like a homecoming.

"I've looked at albums belonging to people I barely know and could swear I recognized people in their photographs. Isn't that what happens with poems? When we let that luckiness come in."

[Five stars forever for the mystery of remembering, and for a collection with so many pictures between pictures, and under them.]


Original review from June 30, 2015:
Simple. Stunning. Profound. A collection of poetry from which I never intend to be far away.

[5 stars for so many lines that careened off the page and straight into my face.]

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Someone quoted one of the poems in this book in an essay I read and I was entranced. So I found the book and read more of Nye's writings and I enjoyed them!

Poetry isn't usually my thing, but Nye's poems were some of the better ones I've come across. They are readable, scene-setting, and sometimes stories. This book in particular takes you around the world to explore cultures in various settings such as Texas, Mexico, Ecuador, Pakistan, India, Israel, and others. All of it feels as though you're sitting in a shaded corner, observing life as it goes by, and yet seeing it in slow motion through Nye's calm, unwavering gaze.

Some of the poems are more abstract than others, but all reveal a beautiful ability to see the world and transcribe it into words.

[Noah · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known."

I love this.

[Q · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite poets. Reread it many times over the years. A wise and huge hearted woman who courageously speaks truths in a way we all can hear. Great collection. Her poem Kindness is world known now - a commonality between us all.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another terrific collection of poetry. I have been on a roll.

[A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I still remember how I found this book….

I was at Barnes & Nobles/ Poetry section, and my eyes caught the photo on the book cover; for a moment I was not sure if I was looking at a Palestinian woman or a Native American….and I did not think it's a poetry book; I thought it was misplaced in that shelf. I picked it up and it was the last copy which usually means to me “you may not find me again”….so I started reading at the back and looked at some pages and was truly impressed of what I saw….What a great combination; a poet half American half Palestinian!

What I like mostly about Naomi’s style is how she presents her thoughts.
1. You don’t hear whining even when she’s complaining.
2. She uses second and third person which makes it easy for you to relate; for a moment you’d think the poem is about you…and you ask your self…me? when did this happen to me?
3. She doesn’t repeat herself and you can’t guess the next line or how the poem will end which adds excitement and anticipation to your reading environment.
4. She’s very brave in using unusual combination of expressions which many may not understand.
5. She looks at life from unusual corners and makes a story out of each view…and you ask yourself how come I did not see that before.

Some of her poems I did not understand….some I could relate to…some I wanted to read again and again…and some I wished they never ended!

Overall, this is one of the most enjoyable poetry book I read so far!

Here are my favorite poems in this book

Negotiations with a Volcano
Grandfather’s Heaven
My Father and the Fig tree
The Art of Disappearing
The words Under the words
Walking Down Blanco Road at Midnight
Famous
The Mother Writes to the Murderer
So Much Happiness
Trying to name what doesn’t change
The Use of Fiction
Defining White
Yellow Glove
Brick
Blood
Arabic Coffee
Wednesday, April 16, 2008

[Krysta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Naomi Nye's poetry. I've been able to read more of her poems, but so far this is the only actual book of poetry I own by her. I would call it my favorite, but I haven't read the others so that wouldn't be fair.

Either way, Naomi Nye is an amazing writer. Her poems all make me want to cry, and they always hit me right at the heart. She has this way of expressing emotion that is very rare to find.

Her poems deal with so many things, yet you can relate to all of them in some way. She's very thought provoking. A lot of her writing has to do with her Palestinian-American heritage, her culture and home (which happens to be San Antonio, Texas, so even more so I feel like I can relate to her poety. She's written about streets I've been on before!), her travels, love, and her family. They are all so gentle and humble and quiet, yet so loud and in your face at the same time somehow. Everytime I finish one of her poems I just feel in awe and must read it again. I love her use of detail and the little things she notices, that is true writing.

Naomi Nye is one of my absolute favorite poets, her writing is raw and real and honest and full of emotion. There is always something behind her words. Hense, "words under the words." I feel like I learn so much from her, and I understand so much she is saying. This collection of her poetry is amazingly meaningful and definitely a must read.

[Travel Writing · Rating 5 out of 5]

Noami Shihab Nye is a profound writer. She takes the simplest of words and crafts them into pure gossamer. I love poetry and I adore, adore, adore Naomi Shihab Nye.

This is one of my many favorites:

So Much Happiness

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.

But happiness floats.
It doesn’t need you to hold it down.
It doesn’t need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records . . .

Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.

[Chris Austin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few favorites:
- Kindness
- The Passport Photo
- The Song- French Movies
- The White Road
- The House in the Heart
- Streets
- New Year
- Famous
- Burning the Old Year
- The Stolen Camera
- One Island
- Coming into Cuzco
- The Art of Disappearing
- The Flying Cat

[Kelsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m happy to have (finally) discovered Naomi Shihab Nye’s poetry. This collection is worth reading even just for the poem “Kindness”; there is a reason it is her most cited poem. Look for the On Being podcast where she tells the story of how “Kindness” came to be.

[David Shirk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. Kindness is certainly the most well known of the collection, but I think my favorite poem is Famous:

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous, or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular, but because it never forgot what it could do.

[David Bjorlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful. Here are some of my favorite excerpts:

"You keep walking, lifting one foot, then the other,
saying 'This is what I need to remember'
and then hoping you can."
-----
"Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time."
----
"Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend."
----
"I live like I know what I'm doing."
----
"I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do."
----
"Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known."
----
"To live without roads seemed one way
not to get lost. To make maps
of stone and grass, to rub stars together
and find a spark."
----
"What will we learn today?
There should be an answer,
and it should
change."

[Trenton McKay · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first experience with Naomi was at a reading of her own work up at Weber State University. She was genuine and articulated each syllable she was reading or speaking when asked a question. What impressed me most about her was that she was a true storyteller. After reading a poem she would transport us all to whatever transient thoughts she had about experiences in her life and how they informed her work, like an ancient storyteller entertaining a tribe around a fire.
It took me a few years to get around to this collection, but I'm glad I did. I'm disillusioned with much of contemporary poetry because it doesn't seem to resonate, I'll think "Hmm. Nice idea" and then forget much about the piece minutes later. Naomi does not have that problem. I find that her work resonates long after you have read it. She understands her culture while responding to the human condition at large and she understands those subtle measures of the heart that define us as individuals. Highlights include "Different Ways To Pray," "Kindness," "Lights From Other Windows," and "What People Do." I will end with one of her lines that stuck with me the most, which is that "before you know what kindness really is you must lose things," that before you can experience true empathy, you must lose something, you must know what suffering is like, only then can you put yourself in someone else's place, speak to them as a true friend.

[Madeleine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I decided that I didn't have quite enough poetry in my life at the moment, so I picked this one up for the umpteenth time. This time I grabbed a pencil and devotedly underlined, circled, starred, and made note of all of my favorite things. This particular book is made up of selected poems from three of her other books: "Different Ways to Pray," "Hugging the Jukebox," and "Yellow Glove." I decided that this time I would sticky note bookmark all of my favorite poems, but quickly realized that this was pretty much pointless as I was bookmarking more than every other poem (at least until about of a third of the way in, because I'm not as big of a fan of the poems from "Hugging the Jukebox"). What was more successful was observing how she structured certain poems, how she built on the first line and made me curious enough to continue reading, because there is so much I want to try to imitate!

Nye describes poems she likes in her own poem called "You Know Who You Are," and I think she creates a good description of her own poems when she says that they are "not the light of Catholic miracles,/[but] the blunt light of a Saturday afternoon."

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

THE WORLD IN TRANSLATION

It was a long climb out of the soil.
She counted off whole continents
as she lifted each foot,
imagined her dark years falling away like husks.
Soon she could feel objects come to life
in her hand, the peel of banana,
a lightly waxed pepper,
she accept these into her home,
placed them in bowls where they could be watched.
There was nothing obscure about melons,
nothing involved about yams.
If she were to have anything to do with the world,
these would be her translators,
through these she would learn secrets of dying,
how to do it gracefully as the peach,
softening in silence,
or the mango, finely tuned to its own skin.

[Tricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

if you are traveling, and you don't feel like botching/struggling with foreign languages... or if you just need a quiet space to talk things through, this book will sit and have tea with you, it will converse with you and probably answer some questions you forgot you wanted to ask for a very long time. from one of my most favorite poems ever, "White Silk", "You want anything--you take your time." exactly

[Joanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I met Naomi Shihab Nye when I was little. She came to my elementary school two different times as an "Artist in Residence." So her poetry has some nostalgia and familiarity for me.

But I just love her poems. I wasn't that taken with Habibi, a young adult novel that she wrote. But her poems are simple yet wonderfully evocative. I'm glad I found this collection.

[Julia Hazel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't read much poetry, but I really loved this book. I read it slowly, reading a poem or two each night, and rereading many. The book is a compilation from several of Nye's poetry books. I love the ideas and feelings she evokes through her descriptions. I love that she write about many places she has known and loved, from the American southwest, to different parts of Latin America, and more. I recommend this book, even if you only pick it up and flip through to read a few.

[Karie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Naomi Shihab Nye is really delightful. She's a serious poet who rejoices in the simplicity of life -- a lost mitten, a broken bowl, a child on the bus. She reminds me to stop and look at details. I was lucky enough to meet her in Corvallis. She's so kind and warm! Some favorites from this book, which is a compilation of three previous books, are "Famous" and "Coming into Cuzco."

[Christopher Sumpter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nye paints brilliant portraits of cultures and contexts around the world. With descriptive phrases bordering on prose, she drops the reader into the light and shadow of an unfamiliar place and then takes him a layer deeper into the picture. The effect weakens as the poetry becomes more abstract, but overall this is a very accessible collection of poems.

[Judy Croome · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful lyrical poems about a range of topics, many filled with a mysterious poignancy that clutches at the emotions even if the meaning is somewhat obscure a times. These poems entice one to read them again and again. They hint at secrets waiting to be unearthed from the rich words they're planted in.

A worthwhile collection from Palestinian-American poet Naomi Nye.

[Mindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like to add poetry to my novel units for my students and I never fail to find a poem (or 10) from this collection that connects universally to the themes of the novels. She sounds like a real person.

[Eliza T. Williamson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The poetry in this collection offers a glimpse into the human condition---the vessel of the heart shared by all, the vehicle for finding and tapping it varied. "Before you know Kindness" and "Happiness" are just two of the many that echo in my mind--both specific lines and thoughts.

[Richard Spilman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book I come back to frequently. Shihab Nye's ability to interweave heritage and everyday experience, commonplace observation with inventive diction and imagery is something to admire and learn from

[Rachelfm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting perspectives of the US, South America, and the Middle East. Accessible and not annoyingly self-referential.

On the recommendation of the Seattle Public Library "Your Next Five Books" recommendation service, which earns 5 stars from me every time.

[Alexis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I spent a really long time reading this book because as I was reading it, I kept needing to go back to earlier poems to share them with friends and students. I absolutely adore this collection of poetry. New favorite.

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reae for the first time in 2002. Reread in its entirety in December 2012. Pulled from my shelf so many times in between. One of my most beloved books of poetry.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of poetry is really underrated. It's really a must-read. Also, it's rather small so it doesn't take ages to finish. I really enjoyed it.