Gazelle: Interpretive Post

    While Naoimi Shihab Nye seems to have poems covering all topics in her book, 19 Varieties of Gazelle, many of the same types of patterns persist throughout them.
     My personal favorite was "The Words Under the Words", which in some ways paid respect to her grandmother. The poems lists parts of her Grandmother such as her hands, days, voice, and eyes. Through discussing the experiences her Grandmother has through these things, she also opens our eyes to the world of the Middle East and her families past there. She discusses Allah, violence, Joha, and more. It can be understood that her Grandmother believes that we should find the deeper meaning the world, or the "words under the words", or else it would be hard to live in such a sad and rough world. If we did not find the deeper meaning we would be held down. Nye uses her Grandmother to let us in and view this foreign world through someone's familiar days.
     The next poem I chose was "For Mohammed on the Mountain". This is an ironic poem as it is really alluding to the story of Mohammed, which as Americans we typically relate to, "If the mountain won't come to Mohammed, he will have to go to it." In the poem she refers to Mohammed as her uncle and questions as to why he had to go to the mountain. By the end she understands that sometimes, one can not change the world, but go to the place where change is capable. I think this could be referring to many things; whether she means the afterlife, her life in the U.S, or other things. I found it interesting when she discusses how she questions daily how little she could live with, while others in America question how much. It highlighted a difference between her and the place she was raised, which may be based on her intrinsic heritage.
    I chose to compare these two poems as Nye uses other people to give life to her poems, and to leave a deeper meaning. While the poem of her "uncle" was really referring to something else, and her Grandmother helped us to see other things, she manipulates characters to enlighten her readers. She also alludes to religious figures in both poems, and uses that as a key part to many of her writing. The poem of Mohammed could also be used to look at her change from a child to an adult, and how her point of view and view of his decision had changed. This also happens in the poem of the Grandmother based on the fact that the Grandmother's quote and life causes a change in her views on her world. It seemed like a good comparison to make between the two.