Fuel

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Poems that find meaning in a world where we are so tired of meaning nothing.

Genres: Poetry, Middle East, Female Authors

137 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 1998

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

[rahul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hidden

If you place a fern
under a stone
the next day it will be
nearly invisible
as if the stone has
swallowed it.

If you tuck the name of a loved one
under your tongue too long
without speaking it
it becomes blood
sigh
the little sucked-in breath of air
hiding everywhere
beneath your words.

No one sees
the fuel that feeds you.

==========================================


One Boy Told Me

Music lives inside my legs.
It’s coming out when I talk.

I’m going to send my valentines
to people you don’t even know.

Oatmeal cookies make my throat gallop.

Grown-ups keep their feet on the ground
when they swing. I hate that.

Look at those 2 o’s with a smash in the middle—
that spells good-bye.

Don’t ever say “purpose” again,
let’s throw the word out.

Don’t talk big to me.
I’m carrying my box of faces.
If I want to change faces I will.

Yesterday faded
but tomorrow’s in boldface.

When I grow up my old names
will live in the house
where we live now.
I’ll come and visit them.

Only one of my eyes is tired.
The other eye and my body aren’t.

Is it true all metal was liquid first?
Does that mean if we bought our car earlier
they could have served it
in a cup?

There’s a stopper in my arm
that’s not going to let me grow any bigger.
I’ll be like this always, small.

And I will be deep water too.
Wait. Just wait. How deep is the river?
Would it cover the tallest man with his hands in the air?

Your head is a souvenir.

When you were in New York I could see you
in real life walking in my mind.

I’ll invite a bee to live in your shoe.
What if you found your shoe
full of honey?

What if the clock said 6:92
instead of 6:30? Would you be scared?

My tongue is the car wash
for the spoon.

Can noodles swim?

My toes are dictionaries.
Do you need any words?

From now on I’ll only drink white milk
on January 26.

What does minus mean?
I never want to minus you.

Just think—no one has ever seen
inside this peanut before!

It is hard being a person.

I do and don’t love you—
isn't that happiness?

-BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

[Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just went to the Sigma Tau Delta Literature Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, and she signed a copy of this book for me. Just because I thought it would be cool, I had her sign a specific poem for me, instead of just the title page. It was "The Eye Test," pretty cool poem too. I really admire Naomi Nye's work, I think she's written some really original and amazing works. When I heard her speak, she's a really warm, energetic person. When somebody asked her what she wants to be remembered for, she said she wants people to remember her for working with children to continue to constantly write. I guess she's gone to countless elementary and middle schools, and talked to them about the importance of writing and reading, living in a life of language. She wants people to remember her for that more than her own writing. I think that says a lot. Definitely not a self-centered or arrogant poet.

[Bryana Beaird · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just discovered her last month but am absolutely smitten with Naomi Shihab Nye's work. She achieves a musicality of language that I often find lacking in contemporary poetry and employs haunting, evocative phrases that, for my part, put this book only slightly below "The Rain in the Trees" (high praise indeed, if you know how highly I regard that volume of Merwin's incandescent verse). This book is truly wonderful.

[Andrea Blancas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Naomi Shihab Nye's poetry always has the answers I didn't know I was seeking.

[tee · Rating 4 out of 5]

our friend from turkey says language is so delicate / he likens it to a darling

this book is so rich with emotion that it is almost the ultimate guide of knowing human relations. i'm very glad i got introduced to the words of miss nye!

we will take this word in our arms. it will be small and breathing. we will not wish to scare it. pressing lips to the edge of each syllable.

[Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book of poetry I found lukewarm, and watery in wandering abstractions. Yet, the emotional broth and occasional hunks of goodness made it more than just edible.

[Amey · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biJ3FP...

One Boy Told me

Music lives inside my legs.
It's coming out when I talk.

I'm going to send my valentines
to people you don't even know.

Oatmeal cookies make my throat gallop.

Grown-ups keep their feet on the ground
when they swing. I hate that.

Look at those 2 o's with a smash in the middle -
that spells good-bye.

Don't ever say "purpose" again,
let's throw the word out.

Don't talk big to me.
I'm carrying my box of faces.
If I want to change faces I will.

Yesterday faded
but tomorrow's in BOLDFACE.

When I grow up my old names
will live in the house
where we live now.
I'll come and visit them.

Only one of my eyes is tired.
The other eye and my body aren't.

Is it true all metal was liquid first?
Does that mean if we bought our car earlier
they could have served it
in a cup?

There's a stopper in my arm
that's not going to let me grow any bigger.
I'll be like this always, small.

And I will be deep water too.
Wait. Just wait. How deep is the river?
Would it cover the tallest man with his hands in the air?

Your head is a souvenir.

When you were in New York I could see you
in real life walking in my mind.

I'll invite a bee to live in your shoe.
What if you found your shoe
full of honey?

What if the clock said 6:92
instead of 6:30? Would you be scared?

My tongue is the car wash
for the spoon.

Can noodles swim?

My toes are dictionaries.
Do you need any words?

From now on I'll only drink white milk
on January 26.

What does minus mean?
I never want to minus you.

Just think - no one has ever seen
inside this peanut before!

It is hard being a person.

I do and don't love you -
isn't that happiness?

~ from the book.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I particularly love about Naomi Shihab Nye is that she uses lots of specific numbers in her poetry. Not just the usual suspects, such as 10,000 and 2 and 7. But the numbers sitting around patiently waiting for their turns, like 47 and 11.

[Shreya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Head in my hands admiring and resentful of how poets pick the perfect words. About a blizzard: "People would dig their cars out like potatoes." About keeping chickens: "Yesterday the egg so fresh it felt hot in his hands." About gardening: "the Mexican men and women who tend with such a gracious bending (...)" Gracious bending!! Obviously, I love this book for more than its adjectives. Nye nimbly condenses complex concepts about nature, community, and death with a quick dash of words. About the IDF uprooting olive groves in Palestine: "No one hears the soldiers / come at night / to pluck the olive tree from its cool sleep." Desert plants undergoing night-time transpiration and breathing out water vapor, the damp crumbly soil around their roots, all contained in "cool sleep" and dropping the reader into a perfect pool of longing and loss. A very sad funny wise collection of poems. Favorites: The Palestinians Have Given Up Parties, Snow, and My Uncle's Favorite Coffee Shop.

[Ashly Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have heard great things about Naomi Shihab Nye, but this is the first experience I have had reading her. I randomly picked this off the library shelf and I was super impressed with the collection.

The poems are easy to read and also offer a lot of variety in terms of length and content. Even so, the collection is cohesive and beautifully put together. I will definitely be seeking out more from this author!

[S.]

liked it

[shelby · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75
“From my father I have inherited the ability to stand in a field and stare"... so true

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first listened to Naomi Shihab Nye being interviewed by Krista Tippet on the radio show On Being. I enjoyed her gentle voice and was intrigued by a poem she read that was about an event that occurred on her honeymoon. I finally found two of her books and this is the first one that I have read.

Her poetry is as human and gentle as her voice was during that radio interview. She takes the every day things like parents suddenly becoming uncool to their child and sees it for what it is--beautiful, hilarious and truly a rite of passage. She writes about her own family and the last time she saw one of her uncles and some things about being in Palestine. She is able to weave broader human things into the particulars of her own family and culture and still give the reader a chance to have a glimpse of what it is like to live somewhere else, to be from somewhere else.

These are poems worth reading slowly and out loud in order to hear how the words go together and allow the reader time to enjoy what images come from them.

[Tamar Alexanian · Rating 3 out of 5]

"A boy told me
if he roller-skated fast enough
his loneliness couldn't catch up to him,
the best reason I ever heard
for trying to be a champion."


"the woman takes it in thinking
how this world has everything and offers it
how it is good we only have two hands"


My Uncle's Favorite Coffee Shop

Serum of steam rising from the cup,
what comfort to be known personally by Barbara,
her perfect pouring hand and starched ascot,
known as the two easy eggs and the single pancake,
without saying.
What pleasure for an immigrant -
anything without saying.

My uncle slid into his booth.
"I cannot tell you - how I love this place."
He drained the water glass, noisily clinking his ice.
My uncle hailed from an iceless region.
He had definite ideas about water drinking.
"I cannot tell you" - all the time. But then he'd try.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked Words under Words but this was more standard literary poetry: a set of observations, and then some "insight", "what this is really about," a revelation. There are some lovely poems here: "Hidden," quoted in many reviews is nice; also "Alphabet;" the opening lines of "The Rider" are lovely (A boy told me/if he roller-skated fast enough/his loneliness couldn't catch up with him); "Pause" brings some nice observations; and the closing poems, "The Last Day of August" and "I Still Have Everything You Gave Me" offer a nice closing sense.

The last lines of "Listening to Poetry in a Language I Do Not Understand" are probably my favorite of her closing insights:

One word rolls across the floor,
lodging under the slipper
of theman who has felt uncomfortable
all day.

Now he knows what to say.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good god, is Nye’s poetry magnificent! Not only does her work have that power of exploration, of taking a detail like an abandoned playhouse and examining it to find the very heart of sadness, but to vary her topics and approaches, from parenthood to teaching to identity to poetry, and all with a solid sense of questioning, of finding the nature of the world rather than lecture about it, and clearly loving it all, its magnificence and pains. Turning a page of this book is its own journey into mystery, but not in a scary way. Naomi Shihab Nye offers the comfort of being on that journey with her, even if it’s a journey with some sorrow at the end of it. But you’ll be better for having uncovered it.

[J.A. Carter-Winward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fuel is a home-cooked meal. The poems are familiar and not. I'm a fan of unselfconscious poetry and that's how Nye writes, her narrative skills pulling the reader into the taste and texture of each piece. At times, they touch on a lost sense of Americana that's been withering for years, and it felt good to be brought back--it felt good to revisit. But lurking underneath the surface of these is a somber, quivering promise. Other poems were bird-like: Light, fleeting, joyful. These poems speak of our shared humanity, and it's so nice to be immersed in someone else's 'normal,' rather than their trauma. Fuel reminds us that poetry comes from keen observation of others and the world, not just solipsism; from all experiences, not just difficult ones.

[rachel selene · Rating 3 out of 5]

from alone:
when the drop of water on the white sink
meets the next drop and they are joining,
he thinks of other ways to spend this life
that he didn’t do. he would like to meet them.

from the palestinians have given up parties:
no one hears the soldiers come at night
to pluck the olive tree from its cool sleep.
ripping up roots. this is not a headline
in your country or mine.
no one hears the tiny sobbing
of the velvet in the drawer.

from hidden:
if you place a fern
under a stone
the next day it will be
nearly invisible
as if the stone has swallowed it.

if you tuck the name of a loved one
under your tongue too long
without speaking it
it becomes blood

[elianna]

I listened to an on being interview with Nye a couple years ago and absolutely treasured it. I started this collection on August 5th and ended it on the 8th.

Not rating because I didn't pay close enough attention to rate. Honorable mentions: boy and mom at the nutcracker ballet, your name engraved on a grain of rice, boy's sleep (:(), glint, ducks, my friend's divorce, visit, half-and-half, feather, estate sale, solve their problems, living at the airport, Alaska, my uncle's favorite coffee shop, boy and egg, luggage, the turtle shrine near Chittagong, from this distance, i still have everything you gave me.

[iba · Rating 3 out of 5]

beautifully written. felt a pang in my heart so many times as i was riddled with emotion. nothing too crazy tho

“My father doesn’t have
a deep interest in donkeys, more a figurative one.
To know it’s out there nuzzling the ground.
That’s how I feel about my life.
I like to skirt the edges. There it is in the field.
Feeding itself.”

-

“It is hard being a person.
I do and don’t love you—
isn’t that happiness?”

-

“Where are you, world? Don’t do anything
while I’m not paying attention.”

[pooja · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The face of the clock at 4 AM
doesn't have many friends.
Its wishes are thin and dark,
to stay humble, close to the floor.

Without it I am a crumble of talk
stuck to a plate.
The day unfolds its sad sack of chores,
the broom loses two more hairs.

Without it I am the letter carrier
who never receives
any mail herself."

Naomi's poems feel like a warm hug on a dark day.

[F.M Papaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Naomi marries simplicity & profoundity in a timeless way. There's such variety in this collection - it's extremely readable for anyone! Influences for this collection mainly centered around her Palestinian heritage, motherhood to a young kid, reflections on the act of writing poems - but many poems are mundane moments from everyday life that she manages to make feel magical.

[brendan brady · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nye’s word carry a meditative authority similar to that of her mentor William Stanford— just much less nature poetry. She is able to tackle quaint human relations as well as loftier topics such as politics and war. a poet to be respected, and an important voice in the world.

[Tarina Nye · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection has many different poems in it, and all of them are great. Some are happy, some sad, some relatable, and some you have no idea where it came from. Whichever poem you are reading will make you want to keep going through the collection.

[Ben Jaques-Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clear and descriptive. Not abstract. I didn’t feel challenged but gently pushed. Reading felt a bit like sitting quietly watching a river.

[bow down to our ace king victor vale · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.65. My favs have to be: Hidden and parts of Darling, The Palestinians Have Given Up Parties, and Alone. I couldn’t vibe with most of the others, but that’s fine!

[Mimi Selvi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book I return to again and again. A must read for lovers of poetry.

[Sydney E · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

beautiful language that i connected to; and so many topics covered! will return to this one

[Cora · Rating 5 out of 5]

The way Naomi Shihab Nye’s mind works is amazing. Such sleight-of-hand twists and kaleidoscopic turns in her poems! Amazing.

[Maha · Rating 2 out of 5]

“I remember / you
you're / the one
I stared at in the / cloud
when I wasn't paying / attention
to people / on the ground.”

I enjoyed the poem that aren’t too observational.