Amid unfathomable suffering and sorrow, the book responds to a hammer of apathy, trauma, and violence with allegiance to a higher principle: universal human dignity ... straightforward language carries vast implications that highlight the tension undergirding daily conditions. Every question also implies the power of silence, whether it’s unanswerable or simply ignored ... The collection doesn’t just look at Palestine, but considers what larger networks uphold systemic violence. Often concerned with the disconnect between declarations of moral authority and horrific actions undertaken in its name, these poems undermine the idea of easy righteousness or neutrality. Following the poems’ complex arcs between insiders and outsiders, horror and banality, is both harrowing and mesmerizing ... The Tiny Journalist addresses a crisis of empathy with powerful vulnerability and imagination and has the power to change brave readers.
In Janna Jihad Ayyad, the 'tiny journalist' who began her work at the age of seven when two members of her family were killed, Nye finds the clear and uncompromising voice of a child who is witness to violence and grief and who is not afraid to speak up—to name and record what she sees but also to take part in the resistance ... In this moment of our history, many poets feel called to the poetry of witness and resistance. This is not new work for Naomi Shihab Nye , who has always woven those threads into her poetry, but never more consistently than in this collection. It is a brave collection from a pair of brave souls.
While Naomi Shihab Nye’s newest book of poetry offers no easy answers, its questions push well beyond the margin of the pages ... Bringing what is as concrete, known, and essential as milk into the harsh language of resistance, the lines compel us to recognize the privilege of silence afforded by distance. Startled spaces like this created between the poems and the world continue to echo for me; a volley of fresh, visual metaphors spoken on behalf of those who have often been most powerless in the face of violence ... throughout the work, and often through Janna’s own words, Shihab Nye exalts the wisdom and uncluttered hope of children and of imagination ... Fearless in the face of unrelenting power, the poems are at once tactile and enraged, refusing to acknowledge anyone’s ability to constrain language ... With very few exceptions, the poems in the book are deeply powerful both on their own and in their connections to one another ... With very few exceptions, the poems in the book are deeply powerful both on their own and in their connections to one another.
On every page, Shihab Nye's insistent call is the same: people, all people, deserve to live safe and healthy lives, free from fear and violence. She mourns, rages, takes politicians to task, but always lands on the side of compassion ... Her poems are a clarion call to readers to see the violence in Palestine and elsewhere, and to do what they can to work for peace.
Using both her own connection to the country—her heritage and her Palestinian father’s journalism career as a BBC reporter—and the youthful voice of Janna Jihad Ayyad, 'the tiny journalist'...for whom the collection is named and who represents the future of Palestine, Nye makes the reader intimately aware of the suffering of Palestinians ... The poignancy of The Tiny Journalist comes from this exploration of voice—of those who have been fighting for a long time who fear things will never get better, and those who have just entered into consciousness of the conflict and are determined that they will. Nye’s melding of voices in The Tiny Journalist is an activism of its own. Not only does this decision create a space for Palestinian mourning, it also actively works to shatter an us versus them mentality with regard to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict ... This collection encourages readers to hear, see, and feel the long-suffering of a people Nye intimately knows. The question left to readers is how will we respond.
...a study in hope and heartbreak ... It is the poems about her father and the tiny journalist who give the book its name, Janna, that spark most with life. There is little room for criticism in the frank and gorgeous way Nye cuts through the division to reveal the pulsing heart of humanity in these poems. The book is not only for lovers of Nye’s work or for fans of poetry; it is, instead, a necessary and powerful look at the people—living, breathing, fighting, dying people—who are often lost in grander ideological discussions. It is a book that demands to be read and shared, over and over again.
Naomi Shihab Nye presents some of her best work in years ... Nye writes in Janna’s voice in many poems, drawing on material from Janna’s Facebook posts. The poet also recalls her own experience of living between Jerusalem and Ramallah as a teenager. The result is a moving testament to the impact one person can have and the devastating effects of occupation.
Only a seasoned poet can modulate fury into poetry. Each verse gives a piece of the tattered puzzle which is Shihab Nye’s native country, more than Middle East historians could tell us, because the core of a country is here — its skin is on the bodies of father, grandfather, friends, mothers of sons. This book can wake us up, because it’s not of policy — it’s the flesh of people who know who they are, in a land so mistreated. Also, there’s gracefulness here ... This poet, always America’s sweetheart, has shared her life with us through her career, warmth, and wisdom — earning our validation — and now, even more, she makes emotion and the world meld, to give an in-depth analysis of her besieged land, letting us know how it appears from inside. In connecting the land and the sea, possibilities and tragedies, poetry reaches the high bar.
Nye uses Janna’s voice to launch a journey to Jerusalem, Gaza, and the Dead Sea and also to Ireland, Guangzhou, and Arkansas. Wherever she lands, Nye has a gift for depicting the plight of oppressed peoples that yields lyrics that resonate universally and yet retain local flavor ... Nye doesn’t hesitate to engage politics directly, and there’s no question about her stance ... Incisive and unsparing, Nye’s caring poems will buzz in readers’ brains long after reading them.
In 70 lyrical meditations populated by protesters, students, street sweepers, carpet weavers, and others seeking to endure the unendurable, Nye demonstrates poetry’s ability to vividly portray the lives behind the headlines ... Such snapshots immerse the reader in a Palestinian village community, bringing home the devastation of tear gas, bombs, and international indifference ... Even when using a more lyrical register, Nye’s desire for poetry to break the fourth wall and challenge the reader’s complacency is palpable.
