My first response to this book was, interestingly, not to the text or content at all. That’s odd for me because I’m usually very focused on those things, but instead this time my first response was to the form and layout of the book. I stared at the cover for about five minutes trying to figure out what the picture is. I wondered if it was Nye herself, and thought it would be really funny for an author to put a picture of herself on the cover of a non-politically inclined book. So then I thought it was a different girl who was just supposed to be representative of a Middle Eastern person. Looking closely, it looks to me like the girl is wearing a normal, “American” sweatshirt, which surprised me a little. If she is supposed to represent Middle Eastern culture, why is she wearing a piece of American clothing? Especially when she has the head wrap that is so representative or symbolic of that culture. And then it dawned on me that perhaps that’s exactly what Nye wanted on the cover, a younger person who melds the Middle Eastern culture with the American culture. It sets the tone for the book, that though it says “poems of the Middle East” on the cover, this is not a book for, by, or about the Middle East. It is a book that speaks to cultures and peoples and stereotypes and experiences beyond any border. It brings, especially, the American and Middle Eastern cultures into one human experience.
One thing I wanted to know was what the girl on the cover is holding. I didn’t see it anywhere in the acknowledgements or copyright page or anything. And I didn’t notice it anywhere in the poems themselves, though I wouldn’t know what I was looking for if it was named in a poem, so I guess it could have been anywhere and I just wouldn’t have known it. It’s a really cool looking thing, and I really wanted to know what it is, but I couldn’t find it.
That brings me to the form of the text inside the book. I’m not sure I can totally explain it, but I just really liked the layout. I like the first letter of each poem being all fancy, and I like the title of each poem going up the side of the page. It sort of leads your eye in a circular pattern instead of a rectangular pattern, if that makes any sense. But the thing I liked most was the little leaf emblem at the end of each poem. When I’m reading a poem, it’s important for me to know where the poem ends. It affects how I read the poem. So knowing exactly when each poem ends is sort of a deal for me. I know that sounds weird, but I loved that.
Okay, to this point in the paper, it may seem like I didn’t actually read the book. I assure, I did. The whole thing. And I won’t lie to you, I thought the form and layout were better than the actual poetry in the book. There were moments when I thought, “Wow, this is really, really good stuff.” But those moments were not common. One such example, however, is “My Father and the Figtree” (6). This was the second poem in the book, and so it gave me high hopes for the rest of the poems. The personal nature of the poem is really quite beautiful, and the symbolism of the figtree as this joyful, lovely, make-life-better thing that everyone chases is outstanding. And I love that he doesn’t rush after it, he simply bides him time, seeming to know that it would be better to hold the memory than accept an imitation. And in the end, he gets what he wanted all along. Somehow, in this shattered world, there are little bits of hope.
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Jerrod,
ReplyDeleteI think you are right in feeling the need to closely examine the front cover of the text. While I looked at it, I didn't think much of what I was seeing. I guess I fell victim to my own stereotypes about what Middle Eastern people look like, I never thought to look more closely at what she was wearing. Luckily, the poems in the rest of the book also allowed be to open my eyes more fully and see the connections between people regardless of culture. The stone tablet she is holding also intrigued me. My copy of the book had the translation of the poem printed on the back cover page under the information about the author and it was the first thing in the book that I read. Your focus and interest in the picture and you are right about the lovely set-up of the poems throughout the book. I agree too that the poems are personal and connect the reader to the characters within them and present hope for something better, like the fig tree.