Sample Poetry Analysis

Ancestors, parents, children. The connections and oppositions among these groups often provide interesting material for poets. In the work of ONE poet you have studied, examine the means by which such relationships have been explored.

Normally, parents are the first teacher of children, and they are children’s models. Parents have tremendous influences on their children during their entire growing procedures. So the connections between parents and children are usually lifted out by the poets to portray deeply, and this theme is easy to arouse readers’ sympathy. Moreover, one of the most charming characteristics of poetry is it can express a concentrated meaning in a brief way, so the feelings are strong and powerful. Those variable emotions flowing in the poem creates the beauty of it.

Due to the constitutes of Naomi Shihab Nye’s family, the combination of Arabic culture and American culture can be reflected in her poetry. Some of her poems are aimed to break the stereotypes of the impression of Arabians in American people’s eyes, so they have historical and educational values. She did not express her emotions directly in her poems but use her father and her childhood memories very frequently. 

In Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem, her father is a character, who is always longing for the connections between himself and his homeland, and he influences poet a lot because he is the person who taught the poet to reexamine her heritage brought from Arabia. He brings poet happy childhood memories, and he is a gentle and nice father in poet’s eyes. In My Father and the Fig Tree, the fig tree symbolizes the gift of nature and father’s homeland, so father loves the fig tree so much. 

“In the evening her sat by my bed 

weaving folktales like vivd little scarves. 

They always involved a fig tree.”  

Here shows the close relationships between poet and her father. Also, starts to tell poet about the “fig tree”, when poet is just a little girl. It can be interpreted as her father naturally tells poet about the element in Arabian culture in normal daily life. Undoubtedly, those memory pieces build up poet’s identity and personality. Since her father does not want the man-made view to ruin his far but warm dream, he never plants a fig tree himself; however, finally he finds a place where he can place his drifting heart, and poet can definitely understand this happiness. 

“ ‘It’s a fig tree song!’ he said,

Plucking his fruits like rip tokens,

emblems, assurance

of a world that was always his own.”

Because of her father, poet relies so much on her family and he belonging. According to the descriptions of his father chanting the fig tree, we can see her father’s emotions passes down on her, and she keeps them carefully, which is the power of the connections between generations. 

Also, in Blood, Naomi Shihab Nye shows this connection even more obviously. At that time period, Americans had many misunderstandings of Arabians, such as they were violent and radical. The poet feels terrible about that, and she sees her as part of Arabia because her father. She chooses to accept and stand for Arabians’ position especially in the fourth stanza, and her father teaches her become to a “true Arab” step by step.

“Today the headlines clot in my blood. 

A little Palestinian dangles a truck on the front page. 

Homeless fig, this tragedy with a terrible root 

is too big for us. What flag can we wave? 

I wave the flag of stone and seed, 

table mat stitched in blue.”

She tries to rise voice for Arabs in all her mind because she wants to embraces this gift and blood given by her father. Through the tight bonds between poet and Arabian culture, her close relationships between she and her father can be clearly seen. She learns to live in “true Arab” way from her father, who is the person she loves so profoundly. 

In a conclusion, children learn a lot from their parents, including heritage, self-identity and personality. They mirror their parents all the time. Poets express what they have learned from their parents and what they have developed themselves in poetry. This unbreakable connection will always be the focus no matter how time changes.