Poetry Friday, Week 25: Naomi Shihab Nye

 Tanita at {fiction, instead of lies} is hosting Poetry Friday. She is sharing the poetry challenge for July which sounds very fun and doable. 
Its a Sedoka is an unrhymed poem made up of two three-line katautawith a 5/7/7, 5/7/7 syllable count. Since a Sedoka has only six lines, you can totally do this! BONUS:  Mary Lee (A(nother) Year of Reading) is hosting next Friday and has the theme for protest Poetry on Independence Day. Try a Sedoka. 

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 We are living in some uncertain times.  This past weekend, after the news, I decided to do restart abandoning art. This time I'm making 2 x 2 in  canvas hearts. #moreart #morelove.

There are 2 that are heading to Paris with a friend to leave somewhere in the city.  I'm going to make more this summer.

The other thing I'm doing is to revisited the poems of Naomi Shihab Nye.  This one comes from The Tiny Journalist. It's a book I bought at the 2020 AWP Conference. I found the poem on Poets.org

Moon Over Gaza​ Naomi Shihab Nye 1952 – 
​I am lonely 
for my friends. 
They liked me, 
trusted my coming. 
I think they looked up at me 
more than other people do.

I who have been staring down so long 
see no reason for the sorrows humans make. 
I dislike the scuffle and dust of bombs blasting 
very much. It blocks my view.

A landscape of sorrow and grieving 
feels different afterwards.  
Different sheen from a simple desert, 
children who say my name 
like a prayer.  

Sometimes I am bigger than 
a golden plate, 
a giant coin 
and everyone gasps. 

Maybe it is wrong 
that I am so calm.
From The Tiny Journalist (BOA Editions, Ltd. 2019) by Naomi Shihab Nye. Copyright © 2019 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Used with the permission of the poet. 

This line is so powerful:
see no reason for the sorrows humans make.

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I received the first Summer Poetry Swap from  Linda Mitchell. And squee she sent me a fabulous book to read by our very own Poetry Friday poet, Margaret Simon.  I am going to begin it tonight. and will be using Linda's hand crafted book mark with the poem, A Book is a Place" by Clyde Watson on the back.
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My goal this summer is to read more poetry and to share more titles.  You may or may not know this but the CYBILS are pausing their year awards for this year.  I get why they are yet I am very sad about this.

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