Vox Populi:

In her latest collection of poems, an award-winning poet explores resistance and hope among the Palestinian people.

The Tiny Journalist
by Naomi Shihab Nye
BOA Editions, Ltd., 2019

Before writing a word about Naomi Shihab Nye’s latest book—one of over thirty volumes of award-winning poetry and prose—I went online to watch Shihab Nye’s current muse, Palestinian “tiny journalist” Janna Tamimi. In an August 2017 interview with ITV, 11-year-old Janna faces her interviewer with the poise Shihab Nye describes in her poem “Janna” (“…You know gazing into a camera / can be a bridge, so you stare / without blinking. […] You know the spot is the only thing / that matters.”) Janna wears her long brown hair in one braid, pulled forward—a style Shihab Nye herself has favored. Like the poet, her delicate face and her voice are both expressive and controlled. In describing her eyewitness experiences of the Israeli occupation that has oppressed and killed her family—her people—for generations, Janna lifts long-fingered hands to emphasize her points. Her keffiyeh shines like watered silk under the lights. It is easy to see, in Janna Tamimi, Naomi Shihab Nye’s child self, a mirror casting a fresh reflection. Both Janna and Naomi, as Nye has remarked, started their careers at the age of seven.

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