The Tiny Journalist

Starred review from April 22, 2019
This latest collection finds the acclaimed Nye (Transfer), daughter of a Palestinian refugee, arguably disproving William Carlos William’s adage that “it is difficult to get the news from poems.” In 70 lyrical meditations populated by protesters, students, street sweepers, carpet weavers, and others seeking to endure the unendurable, Nye demonstrates poetry’s ability to vividly portray the lives behind the headlines. The speakers of these poems are most effective when matter-of-fact: “I knew the man down the alley by the market/ who dragged his leg. He was out there, smoking,/ almost my whole life.” Such snapshots immerse the reader in a Palestinian village community, bringing home the devastation of tear gas, bombs, and international indifference. Nye is critical of euphemistic reportage (“ ‘Deadline for Demolition’/ as if cruelty had its own calendar/ a banker or a businessman”) and at times plainspoken and aphoristic in the manner of Szymborska, effectively conveying conflict’s human cost. In “No Explosions,” the speaker observes, “To enjoy/ fireworks/ you would have/ to have lived/ a different kind/ of life.” Even when using a more lyrical register, Nye’s desire for poetry to break the fourth wall and challenge the reader’s complacency is palpable. “When Facebook says I have ‘followers,’ ” she says in the voice of Janna Ayyad, the young Palestinian activist from whose story the collection draws inspiration, “I hope they know I need their help.”

February 1, 2019

National Book Award finalist Nye (19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East) explains that she joined Facebook to follow Janna Jihad Ayyad, who at age seven began documenting antioccupation protests in the occupied West Bank using her mother's smartphone, and this latest collection pays homage to the "youngest journalist in Palestine" while also reflecting on the journalism career of Nye's father and her own writing practices as they relate to her identity as a Palestinian American. From its dedication to "all young people devoted to justice and sharing their voices" all the way through to its final pages, the collection is brave and direct without ever losing the beautiful opacity of poetry. Nye draws on the tools of a poet with her careful deployment of litotes, her formal sophistication, and her economical language, and she counterbalances longer, more narrative poems with concise works that, in their brevity, have an almost atemporal accessibility, as in "No Explosions." VERDICT These are poems to read and reread. They are also reminders that words have power--and that when people use them wisely, as Janna does, we should support their work by listening and truly hearing the truths being bared.--Emily Bowles, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2019
Prolific and much-embraced, Nye (Voices in the Air, 2018) has received praise for her rollicking free verse and relentless appeals for global justice. The poems in this book start with Janna Jihad Ayyad, a seven-year-old girl who became known as the Youngest Journalist in Palestine after she began using her mother's cell phone to record scenes of unrest on the West Bank. Nye uses Janna's voice to launch a journey to Jerusalem, Gaza, and the Dead Sea and also to Ireland, Guangzhou, and Arkansas. Wherever she lands, Nye has a gift for depicting the plight of oppressed peoples that yields lyrics that resonate universally and yet retain local flavor as, for instance, she praises math students of Gaza, embroiderers of the West Bank, / lemon vendors, grapefruit-growers alike. Nye doesn't hesitate to engage politics directly, and there's no question about her stance in poems like Netanyahu, named after the Israeli prime minister: You don't need a skewer for broiling / or a paring knife / for seeing inside. Incisive and unsparing, Nye's caring poems will buzz in readers' brains long after reading them.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)