A Maze Me: Poems for Girls [Library Binding]

"Ringing

A baby, I stood in my crib to hear

the dingy-ding of a vegetable truck approaching.

When I was bigger, my mom took me out

to the street

to meet the man who rang the bell and

he tossed me

a tangerine...

...the first thing I ever caught. I thought

he was

a magic man.

My mom said there used to be milk trucks too.

She said,

Look hard, he'll be gone soon. And she was right.

He disappeared.

Now when I hear an ice-cream truck chiming

its bells, I fly.

Even if I'm not hungry--just to watch it pass.

Mailmen with their chime of dogs barking

up and down the street are magic too.

They are all bringers.

I want to be a bringer.

I want to drive a truck full of eggplants down

the smallest street.

I want to be someone making music

with my coming."

And so she is. And so she does.

A great joy that accompanies a new book of poems by Naomi Shihab Nye is the expectation that she will begin reappearing at national conferences and conventions, reading aloud from her latest collection. The good feeling I've taken away with me from her past workshops is about as close as I get to church these days.

A MAZE ME contains seventy-two of Naomi's latest poems. Younger teens will find these pieces easy to read and relate to. Hopefully, many will be intrigued and inspired by Naomi's ability to create poetry from such sources as a car manual, a newspaper article, a taco sign, "the hair on the head of the girl in front of me in school," Julia Child's patting potatoes, or a vapor trail "X" that a pair of planes have inadvertently left in the sky.

Being a book of "Poems for Girls" there are also the requisite handful of "longing" poems:

"High Hopes

It wasn't that they were so

high, exactly,

they were more

low-down,

close-to-the-ground,

I could rub them

the way you touch a cat

that rubs against your ankles

even if he isn't yours.

So yes I feel lonely without them.

Now that I know the truth,

that I only dreamed someone liked me,

the cat has curled up in a bed of leaves

against the house and I still have to do

everything I had to do before

without a secret hum

inside."

Despite being a guy, I really enjoyed the images and memories conjured up by these poems. Whether reading "Visiting My Old Kindergarten Teacher, Last Day of School," "Turtle" (about the persistent creature that had walked for twenty years), or "Across the Aisle" (about the little girl who coughed "every 30 seconds for seven whole hours" on a transatlantic flight), I've repeatedly interrupted Rosemary's reading on the couch and Shari's grading papers at the kitchen table in order to have an audience with whom to share the poems aloud.

"Big Head, Big Face

(what my brother said to me)

If your head had been smaller

maybe you woulda had less thoughts in it,

maybe you wouldn't have so many troubles.

This is just a guess but seems to me

like a little drawer only hold a few spoons

and you can always find the one you need

while a big drawer jammed with tongs

strings corks junky stuff receipts birthday cards

you never gonna look at

scrambled and mixed so one day

you open that drawer

poke your hand in and big knife go

through your palm

you didn't even know a knife was IN there,

well, that's why I think

it might not be so bad to have a little head

with just a few thoughts few memories few hopes

maybe if only one little one came true

that be enough for you."

Luckily for us, Naomi Shihab Nye has carefully sifted through that drawer to provide an entertaining assortment of poetic images, thoughts, stories, and yoga poses.

This book by the sublime Naomi Shihab Nye is subtitled "Poems for Girls," but I don't think that this charming book should be restricted to one gender. I certainly chuckled, oohed, and aahed a number of times as I read through it. (Still, it WOULD make a great gift for the young girl in your life.)

Shihab Nye has a generosity of spirit that shines through her poetry like a twinkle in a kindly aunt's eye. Here is a little somethin'-somethin' to whet your appetite (excerpted from "Ringing"):

"Now, when I hear an ice-cream truck chiming its bells, I fly

Even if I'm not hungry -- just to watch it pass.

Mailmen with their chime of dogs barking

up and down the street are magic too.

They are all bringers.

I want to be a bringer.

I want to drive a truck full of eggplants down the smallest street. I want to be someone making music with my coming."

Once I read Naomi Shihab Nye's introduction, I felt I was about to turn the pages of something very special. I was right. This unique collection of poems gives the reader a chance to look at familiar life in a new way. Full of nostalgia, intimate and humorous, tender and tearful, this is a book I would love to underline and memorize. I look forward to writing in my own notebook, trying to find the poet in me.