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    This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from Around the World
    This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from Around the World
    This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from Around the World
    Ebook240 pages1 hour

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

    By Naomi Shihab Nye

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    A multicultural anthology of poems represents the poetic voices, observations, traditions, and stories of people from some sixty countries around the world.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAladdin
    Release dateJun 24, 2008
    ISBN9781439108185
    This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from Around the World
    Author

    Naomi Shihab Nye

    Naomi Shihab Nye was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her father was a Palestinian refugee and her mother an American of German and Swiss descent, and she spent her adolescence in both Jerusalem and San Antonio, Texas. She earned her BA from Trinity University in San Antonio. Naomi Shihab Nye describes herself as a “wandering poet.” She has spent more than forty years traveling the country and the world, leading writing workshops and inspiring students of all ages. Naomi Shihab Nye is the author and/or editor of more than thirty books. Her books of poetry for adults and young people include 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East (a finalist for the National Book Award); A Maze Me: Poems for Girls; Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners; Honeybee (winner of the Arab American Book Award); Cast Away: Poems of Our Time (one of the Washington Post’s best books of 2020); Come with Me: Poems for a Journey; and Everything Comes Next: Collected and New Poems. Her other volumes of poetry include Red Suitcase; Words Under the Words; Fuel; Transfer; You & Yours; Mint Snowball; and The Tiny Journalist. Her collections of essays include Never in a Hurry and I’ll Ask You Three Times, Are You Okay?: Tales of Driving and Being Driven. Naomi Shihab Nye has edited nine acclaimed poetry anthologies, including This Same Sky: Poems from Around the World; The Space Between Our Footsteps: Poems from the Middle East; Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25; and What Have You Lost? Her picture books include Sitti’s Secrets, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter, and her acclaimed fiction includes Habibi; The Turtle of Oman (winner of the Middle East Book Award) and its sequel, The Turtle of Michigan (honorable mention for the Arab American Book Award). Naomi Shihab Nye has been a Lannan Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Witter Bynner Fellow (Library of Congress). She has received a Lavan Award from the Academy of American Poets, the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, the Paterson Poetry Prize, four Pushcart Prizes, the Robert Creeley Award, and "The Betty," from Poets House, for service to poetry, and numerous honors for her children’s literature, including two Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards. In 2011 Nye won the Golden Rose Award given by the New England Poetry Club, the oldest poetry-reading series in the country. Her work has been presented on National Public Radio on A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer’s Almanac. She has been featured on two PBS poetry specials, including The Language of Life with Bill Moyers, and she also appeared on NOW with Bill Moyers. She has been affiliated with the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin for twenty years and served as poetry editor at the Texas Observer for twenty years. In 2019–20 she was the poetry editor for the New York Times Magazine. She is Chancellor Emeritus for the Academy of American Poets and laureate of the 2013 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature, and in 2017 the American Library Association presented Naomi Shihab Nye with the 2018 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award. In 2018 the Texas Institute of Letters named her the winner of the Lon Tinkle Award for Lifetime Achievement. She was named the 2019–21 Young People's Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. In 2020 she was awarded the Ivan Sandrof Award for Lifetime Achievement by the National Book Critics Circle. In 2021 she was voted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Naomi Shihab Nye is professor of creative writing-poetry at Texas State University.

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    • 5/5
      This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from Around the World, selected by Naomi Shihab Nye, contains poems from 129 poets in 68 different countries. The collection’s table of contents is separated by topic: ie., “Words and Silences”, Dreams and Dreamers”, “Families”, This Earth and Sky In Which We Live”, “Losses”, and “Human Mysteries”. From the beginning, the selection creates a reading atmosphere allowing the human connection to resonate. No matter what part of the world one lives, we experience strong similarities. An impressive feature in the back of the book, the author includes a brief set of notes on each of the poets included in her book. This is a wonderful starting point for students interested in finding out more about the poets. Following the several pages of notes, Nye includes a map of the world identifying the countries from where the contributors came. Next, she includes a page of further reading suggestions. Also in the back of the book is an index to the countries so students can easily search for the countries represented in the collection. Finally, there is an index to the poets. This is a great collection for a high school library.

    Book preview

    This Same Sky - Naomi Shihab Nye

    THIS SAME SKY

    A Collection of Poems from around the World

    NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

    Virginia Norey

    Christy Hale

    Deborah Maverick Kelley

    Aladdin Paperbacks An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020

    THIS SAME SKY

    A Collection of Poems from around the World

    Selected by NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

    ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

    A NOTE TO READERS:

    At the time this book went to press, several areas around the world were

    in the midst of political turmoil and upheaval. Because of this poets are

    sometimes presented with the region rather than the country from which they come.

    First Aladdin Paperbacks edition May 1996

    Copyright © 1992 by Naomi Shihab Nye

    Pages 203-207 constitute an extension of the copyright page.

    Aladdin Paperbacks

    An imprint of Simon & Schuster

    Children’s Publishing Division

    1230 Avenue of the Americas

    New York, NY 10020

    www.SimonandSchuster.com

    All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form

    Also available in a Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers edition

    Map by Virginia Norey

    Designed by Christy Hale

    Part-title art by Deborah Maverick Kelley

    The text of this book was set in Weiss.

    Printed and bound in the United States of America

    10 9

    The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

    This same day: a collection of poems from around the world

    / selected by Naomi Shihab Nye.—1st ed.

    p. cm.

    Includes bibliographical references and index.

    Summary: A poetry anthology in which 129 poets from sixty-eight different countries celebrate the natural world and its human and animal inhabitants.

    ISBN 0-02-768440-7

    ISBN 13: 978-0-689-80630-8

    eISBN 13: 978-1-439-10818-5

    1. Children’s poetry.

    2. Children’s poetry—Translations into English. [1. Poetry—Collections.]

    I. Nye, Naomi Shihab.

    PN6109.97.T49 1992

    808.81′936—dc20                              92-11617

    ISBN 0-689-80630-2 (Aladdin pbk.)

    For the wonderful educators I have been privileged to know over the years, especially Harriett B. Lane, John D. Brantley, William O. Walker, Francisco Treto-Garcia, Claude Zetty, Robert Flynn, Carol Mengden, Mary Howard, Paul Rode, Amy Freeman Lee, Maury Maverick, Jr., Bill White, Rubina Schroeder, Sandee Willis, Donna Northouse, Leonard Nathan, William Stafford, Kim Stafford, Rosemary Catacalos, Brenda Goins, Barbara Orlovsky, Christine Eastus, Samuel Hazo, Lorna Hung, and Carolyn Helfman, who encouraged me to gather this book.

    CONTENTS

    Introduction,

    House of Spring, Musō Soseki,

    WORDS AND SILENCES: "Sawdust from under the Saw"

    Once I got a postcard from the Fiji Islands, Jaan Kaplinski,

    Old Mountains Want to Turn to Sand, Tommy Olofsson,

    The Meaning of Simplicity, Yannis Ritsos,

    Poetry Was Like This, Al Mahmud,

    The Pen, Muhammad al-Ghuzzi,

    The Question Mark, Gevorg Emin,

    The Gatherer, Ali al-Mak,

    Lizard, Bundgård Povlsen,

    Between Ebb and Flow, Fadwa Tuqan,

    Crowned Crane,

    A Tree Within, Octavio Paz,

    A Short Story, David Escobar Galindo,

    Life of the Cricket, Jorge Carrera Andrade,

    Coils the Robot, Floria Herrero Pinto,

    from Altazor, Vicente Huidobro,

    Paper Doll, Guadalupe Morfín,

    Distances of Longing, Fawziyya Abu Khalid,

    At the Beach, Kemal Ozer,

    Monkeys, Klara Koettner-Benigni,

    Freedom, Wimal Dissanayake,

    Lamento, Tomas Tranströmer,

    Wordless Day, Chang Shiang-hua,

    DREAMS AND DREAMERS: Eyes the Color of Sky

    In the Kitchen, Jean Joubert,

    A Headstrong Boy, Gu Cheng,

    Wanting to Move, Vijaya Mukhopadhyay,

    The Cucumber, Nazim Hikmet,

    The Tin Bird, Ramón C. Sunico,

    On My Birthday, Farhad Mazhar,

    The Orphan, Muhammad al-Maghut,

    Wildpeace, Yehuda Amichai,

    Healing, Yannis Ritsos,

    Happy as a Dog’s Tail, Anna Swir,

    Picnic to the Earth, Shuntarō Tanikawa,

    Why There Are No Cats in the Forest, Simeon Dumdum, Jr.,

    Song, Cecilia Meireles,

    The Sick-Room, R. A. Simpson,

    The Shadow Inside Me, Tommy Olofsson,

    One day I asked the mirror facing me, Tialuga Sunia Seloti,

    The Prison Cell, Mahmud Darwish,

    A Sailor’s Memoirs, Muhammad al-Fayiz,

    Where is the heart I am calling?, Roberto Juarroz,

    Day-Dream, Samarendra Sengupta,

    The Parakeets, Alberto Blanco,

    A Dream of Paradise in the Shadow of War, Muneer Niazi,

    Salt and Memory, Zoltán Zelk,

    My Great Grand Uncle, Tarapada Ray,

    Magic, Dahlia Ravikovitch,

    FAMILIES: The First Tying

    Wolf-Ancestry, Vasko Popa,

    To the Ancestors,

    Childhood, Jean Joubert,

    Remembering, Xue Di,

    Sparrow,

    Transformations, Tadeusz Rózewicz,

    Souvenir of the Ancient World, Carlos Drummond de Andrade,

    Industrial Childhood, Sharon Stevenson,

    I Was Born in Jacinto Vera, Liber Falco,

    Weights, Les Murray,

    Small Wants, Bibhu Padhi,

    Believe It or Not, Nicolai Kantchev,

    Brownout, Tony Perez,

    Atong, Benilda S. Santos,

    Atong and His Goodbye, Benilda S. Santos,

    Father and Son, Tomasz Jastrun,

    Petrified Minute, Zoltán Zelk,

    Companion, Manjush Dasgupta,

    A Pearl, Fawziyya Abu Khalid,

    A New Dress, Ruth Dallas,

    Vistasp, Gieve Patel,

    Poem for My Son, Bibhu Padhi,

    An Appointment, Chang Shiang-hua,

    The First Shoe, Máire Mhac an tSaoi,

    Grandmother, Sameeneh Shirazie,

    My Life Story, Lan Nguyen,

    The Mushroom River, Xue Di,

    Letter from My Son, Shihab Sarkar,

    Summer, Jayanta Mahapatra,

    Jasmine, Kyongjoo Hong Ryou,

    Footpath, Stella Ngatho,

    Family Portrait, Eka Budianta,

    THIS EARTH AND SKY IN WHICH WE LIVE. Water That Used to Be a Cloud

    Mindoro, Ramón C. Sunico,

    Dawn, Edith Södergran,

    Grass, Tom Kristensen,

    The Land of Mists, Kwang-kyu Kim,

    Spring Poem, Colleen Thibaudeau,

    Dew, Linus Suryadi AG,

    Beside a stone three, Christine M. Krishnasami,

    Country Memory, Leticia Herrera Alvarez,

    Cuernavaca, Aline Pettersson,

    Mountain Tambourine, Peter van Toorn,

    The sodden moss sinks underfoot …, Aleš Debeljak,

    Improvisation (Eching), Kevin Ferryman,

    Greedy snowslide,

    The Sky Is Vast, Pramila Khadun,

    The Penguin, Ricardo Yáñez,

    The Open Shutter, Karl Krolow,

    Wind’s Foam, Al Mahmud,

    The Squirrel, Saleem Barakat,

    The Birth of a Stone, Kwang-kyu Kim,

    Caring for Animals, Jon Silkin,

    Autumn and the Sea, Javier Heraud,

    Pitcher, Renée Ferrer de Arréllaga,

    Cleaned the Crocodile’s Teeth,

    Cat, Jibananda Das,

    The Moon Rises Slowly over the Ocean, Xu De-min,

    Stars at Night, Iku Takenaka,

    The Pit Ponies, Leslie Norris,

    Great Aso, Tatsuji Miyoshi,

    Ants, Yusuf al-Sa’igh,

    from Diary of a Woodcutter, Fuad Rifka,

    Under This Sky, Zia Hyder,

    LOSSES: Kissed Trees

    What is it that upsets the volcanoes …, Pablo Neruda,

    There’s an Orange Tree Out There, Alfonso Quijada Urías,

    Horse by Moonlight, Alberto Blanco,

    A Tree, Klara Koettner-Benigni,

    Love, Tymoteusz Karpowicz,

    A Brief Note to the Bag Lady, Ma Sister, Yusuf Eradam,

    A Man Never Cries, José Craveirinha,

    Surprise, Blanca Rodriguez,

    Oh! Oh! Should They Take Away My Stove … My Inexhaustible Ode to Joy, Miron Bialoszewski,

    A Train Is Passing, Poul Borum,

    A Gift Horse, Alamgir Hashmi,

    In the Lebanese Mountains, Nadia Tueni,

    The Garden of a Child, Nirendranath Chakravarti,

    Bicycles, Andrei Voznesensky,

    The Memory of Horses, Rolf Jacobsen,

    Inside, Kim Chiha,

    Home, Nasima Aziz,

    Before the Game, Vasko Popa,

    HUMAN MYSTERIES: White Bracelets

    Napoleon, Miroslav Holub,

    Locked In, Ingemar Leckius,

    Debt, Sunay Akin,

    A Boy’s Head, Miroslav Holub,

    The Ship’s Whistle, Tarapada Ray,

    Sweet Like a Crow, Michael Ondaatje,

    Volunteer Worker, Tony Perez,

    Behind Bars, Fadwa Tuqan,

    On Destiny, Shuntarō Tanikawa,

    For Genevieve, Simeon Dumdum, Jr.,

    Childhood Is the Only Lasting Flower, Ramón Díaz Eterovic,

    Goodness, Benny Andersen,

    The Rhythm of the Tomtom, António Jacinto,

    Do what you like with my face, Amanda Aizpuriete,

    The New Suit, Nidia Sanabria de Romero,

    White Bracelets, Colleen Thibaudeau,

    I Have Ten Legs, Anna Swir,

    The Tongue, Pia Tafdrup,

    A man comes in, his suit is crumpled, Sergei Timofeyev,

    Greenland’s History, Sven Holm,

    The Wall, Tania Diaz Castro,

    Jerusalem, Yehuda Amichai,

    There are times when I can’t move., Roberto Juarroz,

    In his room the man watches, Homero Aridjis,

    The Indians, Roberto Sosa,

    The Labourer, Toolsy Daby,

    Clouds on the Sea, Ruth Dallas,

    Or, Ali Darwish,

    My Share, Salih Bolat,

    Pride, Dahlia Ravikovitch,

    Lucia, Lucia Casalinuovo,

    Far and Close, Gu Cheng,

    At the Ferry, Vijaya Mukhopadhyay,

    Notes on the Contributors,

    Map,

    Suggestions for Further Reading,

    Acknowledgments,

    Index to Countries,

    Index to Poets,

    INTRODUCTION

    The Turkish poet Kandemir Konduk writes about the apple worm: All he knows, all he has seen, all his joys, all his cares, are as big as his apple.

    We cannot live like the apple worm, as much as we may enjoy thinking about him. From over on the next tree, voices are calling to us—from the next orchard even! How are our branches different and our stories similar? And what lovely, larger life becomes ours when we listen to one another?

    Poetry has always devoted itself to bringing us into clearer focus—letting us feel or imagine faraway worlds from the inside. During the Gulf War of 1991, when the language of headline news seemed determined to push human experience into the sanitized distance, I found myself searching for poems by Iraqi poets to carry into classrooms. Even if the poems had been written decades earlier, they helped to give a sense of human struggle and real people living behind those headlines.

    Those of us living in the United States often suffer from a particular literary provinciality, imagining ourselves to be the primary readers and writers of the planet. We forget that our literary history is relatively brief. Writers in Bangalore, India, asked me what it is like to live in a country with such a young soul. When a writer in Dhaka, Bangladesh, said, "We

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