This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from Around the World

by Naomi Shihab Nye, Naomi Shihab Nye (Selected by)

Overview

A multicultural anthology of poems represents the poetic voices, observations, traditions, and stories of people from some sixty countries around the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781439108185
Publisher:	Aladdin
Publication date:	06/24/2008
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
Lexile:	NP (what's this?)
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	10 - 18 Years

About the Author

Naomi Shihab Nye is an award-winning writer and editor whose work has appeared widely. She edited the ALA Notable international poetry collection, This Same Sky, and The Tree Is Older Than You Are: Poems and Paintings from Mexico, as well as The Space Between Our Footsteps: Poems and Paintings from the Middle East. Her books of poems include Fuel, Red Suitcase, and Words Under the Words. A Guggenheim fellow, she is also the author of the young adult novel Habibi, which was named an ALA Notable Book, a Best Book for Young Adults, and winner of the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award as well as the Book Publishers of Texas award from the Texas Institute of Letters. Naomi lives in San Antonio, Texas, with her husband, Michael, and their son, Madison.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	xii
	House of Spring	5
	Words and Silences: "Sawdust from under the Saw"
	"Once I got a postcard from the Fiji Islands"	9
	Old Mountains Want to Turn to Sand	10
	The Meaning of Simplicity	11
	Poetry Was Like This	12
	The Pen	14
	The Question Mark	14
	The Gatherer	15
	Lizard	16
	Between Ebb and Flow	17
	Crowned Crane	19
	A Tree Within	20
	A Short Story	20
	Life of the Cricket	21
	Coils the Robot	22
	From Altazor	23
	Paper Doll	24
	Distances of Longing	24
	At the Beach	25
	Monkeys	26
	Freedom	27
	Lamento	28
	Wordless Day	29
	Dreams and Dreamers: "Eyes the Color of Sky"
	In the Kitchen	33
	A Headstrong Boy	34
	Wanting to Move	36
	The Cucumber	37
	The Tin Bird	38
	On My Birthday	39
	The Orphan	40
	Wildpeace	41
	Healing	42
	Happy as a Dog's Tail	42
	Picnic to the Earth	43
	Why There Are No Cats in the Forest	44
	Song	45
	The Sick-Room	46
	The Shadow Inside Me	46
	"One day I asked the mirror facing me"	47
	The Prison Cell	48
	A Sailor's Memoirs	50
	"Where is the beart I am calling?"	52
	Day-Dream	52
	The Parakeets	53
	A Dream of Paradise in the Shadow of War	54
	Salt and Memory	55
	My Great Grand Uncle	56
	Magic	57
	Families: "The First Tying"
	Wolf-Ancestry	61
	To the Ancestors	62
	Childhood	63
	Remembering	64
	Sparrow	65
	Transformations	65
	Souvenir of the Ancient World	66
	Industrial Childhood	67
	I Was Born in Jacinto Vera	68
	Weights	69
	Small Wants	70
	Believe It or Not	72
	Brownout	73
	Atong	74
	Atong and His Goodbye	75
	Father and Son	76
	Petrified Minute	77
	Companion	77
	A Pearl	78
	A New Dress	79
	Vistasp	80
	Poem for My Son	81
	An Appointment	82
	The First Shoe	83
	Grandmother	83
	My Life Story	84
	The Mushroom River	86
	Letter from My Son	87
	Summer	88
	Jasmine	89
	Footpath	90
	Family Portrait	91
	This Earth and Sky in Which We Live: "Water That Used to Be a Cloud"
	Mindoro	95
	Dawn	96
	Grass	97
	The Land of Mists	98
	Spring Poem	99
	Dew	100
	"Beside a stone three"	100
	Country Memory	101
	Cuernavaca	102
	Mountain Tambourine	102
	"The sodden moss sinks underfoot ..."	103
	Improvisation (Eching)	104
	"Greedy snowslide"	105
	The Sky Is Vast	106
	The Penguin	107
	The Open Shutter	108
	Wind's Foam	109
	The Squirrel	110
	The Birth of a Stone	111
	Caring for Animals	112
	Autumn and the Sea	113
	Pitcher	114
	Cleaned the Crocodile's Teeth	115
	Cat	116
	The Moon Rises Slowly over the Ocean	117
	Stars at Night	118
	The Pit Ponies	119
	Great Aso	121
	Ants	122
	From Diary of a Woodcutter	122
	Under This Sky	124
	Losses: "Kissed Trees"
	"What is it that upsets the volcanoes ..."	129
	There's an Orange Tree Out There	130
	Horse by Moonlight	130
	A Tree	131
	Love	132
	A Brief Note to the Bag Lady, Ma Sister	133
	A Man Never Cries	136
	Surprise	137
	"Oh! Oh! Should They Take Away My Stove ..." My Inexhaustible Ode to Joy	138
	A Train Is Passing	139
	A Gift Horse	139
	In the Lebanese Mountains	140
	The Garden of a Child	142
	Bicycles	143
	The Memory of Horses	144
	Inside	145
	Home	146
	Before the Game	147
	Human Mysteries: "White Bracelets"
	Napoleon	151
	Locked In	152
	Debt	153
	A Boy's Head	154
	The Ship's Whistle	155
	Sweet Like a Crow	155
	Volunteer Worker	157
	Behind Bars	158
	On Destiny	159
	For Genevieve	160
	Childhood Is the Only Lasting Flower	161
	Goodness	162
	The Rhythm of the Tomtom	163
	"Do what you like with my face"	164
	The New Suit	165
	White Bracelets	166
	I Have Ten Legs	167
	The Tongue	167
	"A man comes in, his suit is crumpled"	168
	Greenland's History	169
	The Wall	171
	Jerusalem	172
	"There are times when I can't move"	172
	"In his room the man watches"	173
	The Indians	174
	The Labourer	176
	Clouds on the Sea	177
	Or	178
	My Share	180
	Pride	181
	Lucia	182
	Far and Close	184
	At the Ferry	185
	Notes on the Contributors	189
	Map	198
	Suggestions for Further Reading	201
	Acknowledgments	203
	Index to Countries	209
	Index to Poets	211

Editorial Reviews

This is an extraordinary anthology, not only in its global range--129 contemporary poets from 68 countries, their work translated from many languages--but also in the quality of the selections and the immediacy of their appeal. From Palestine, Argentina, Latvia, Israel, and Lebanon to India, New Zealand, and El Salvador, diverse voices connect us all. Many poets, especially those from eastern Europe and the Middle East, have barely appeared in YA books before. Editor Nye, a fine writer herself who visits schools across the country to talk about poetry, shows us what we've missed. Most of the poems are upbeat (Who says comedy doesn't travel?) and loosely organized into sections that include families, animals, and the natural world; there are also poems about suffering, several about prison. Browsers will dip into this, and teachers will find the index by country useful for curriculum units. No illustrations distract from the verbal imagery; there's just a bright wraparound cover and endpapers made up of the signatures and stamps of the poets who wrote to Nye and mailed her their work. The brief notes on each contributor include some terse personal comments and stories that are nearly as stirring as the poetry. Nye includes a suggested list of anthologies, like those by Janeczco, that focus on the U.S. The translations are casual, even colloquial, getting away from the idea of poetry as something special and exotic. As the Estonian poet Kaplinski says, "Everything that is is very ordinary / or, rather, neither ordinary nor strange." Yes, says Nye, something must be lost in translation--but look at what's gained.

Hazel Rochman