{"id":1281,"date":"2008-05-16T00:47:32","date_gmt":"2008-05-16T06:47:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1281"},"modified":"2008-05-16T00:48:22","modified_gmt":"2008-05-16T06:48:22","slug":"poetry-friday-making-a-fist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1281","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Friday: Making a Fist"},"content":{"rendered":"

This poem was my introduction to Naomi Shihab Nye<\/strong><\/a>. I don’t even remember how or when I came across it, but it has stayed with me forever after:<\/p>\n

For the first time, on the road north of Tampico,
\nI felt the life sliding out of me,
\na drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.
\nI was seven, I lay in the car
\nwatching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass.
\nMy stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.<\/p>\n

“How do you know if you are going to die?”
\nI begged my mother.
\nWe had been traveling for days.
\nWith strange confidence she answered,
\n“When you can no longer make a fist.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

little fistClick here<\/strong><\/a> to read the final stanza, and to hear Nye herself give a reading of it.<\/p>\n

I think this poem really showcases Nye’s economy of language. This poem is stripped of any unnecessary details: where they were going and why, what was really wrong with the poor kid… The line “My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin” is all we need. Ten words, and I know exactly the kind of pain she’s in, and why she thought she was dying. <\/p>\n

And then there’s the quiet power of the last line: “I who did not die, who am still living…” The last stanza acknowledges life’s hardships, but puts them in perspective when measured against the strength of a child’s fist.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/center><\/p>\n

The fine femmes at Two Writing Teachers<\/strong><\/a> are rounding up for this week’s Poetry Friday. Head on over and see what they got.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This poem was my introduction to Naomi Shihab Nye. I don’t even remember how or when I came across it, but it has stayed with me forever after: For the first time, on the road north of Tampico, I felt the life sliding out of me, a drum in the desert, harder and harder to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-friday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1281\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}