19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East

From Jerusalem’s sunlit stone lanes to a West Bank garden fragrant with eggplant and mint, Naomi Shihab Nye’s 19 Varieties of Gazelle gathers sixty luminous poems that dart like their namesake—swift, alert, impossibly graceful—through everyday Middle Eastern life. Meet Fowzi, the domino champion whose laughter ricochets off café walls; Ibtisam, whose paused dream of becoming a doctor flickers brighter than desert stars; Abu Mahmoud, gently naming each fruit he coaxes from contested soil; and enigmatic Uncle Mohammed, retreating to a mountain where silence heals. Children in velvet dresses circle a candy bowl, Baba Kamalyari at seventy-one weaves tales thick with cardamom, while Mr. Dajani’s swans glide across mirrored water, proof that beauty persists. Without preaching, Nye threads Racial Justice and Cultural Understanding through every stanza, inviting classrooms and faith circles to glimpse hearts too often hidden behind headlines. These voices—Arab, American, hopeful, weary—ask, “Tell me how to live so many lives at once,” daring readers to answer. Will you let their quiet resilience slip past, or open the gate and run beside the gazelle toward deeper empathy? Learn more and let poetry redraw your map of the Middle East.