Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners by Naomi Shihab Nye (review)

This collection of over ninety of Nye's original poems makes a strong if implicit argument that aspiring poets need to read lots of poetry. Most of the poems reference the voices of other poets, not in formal imitation but through engaged conversation and response to inspirational lines or ideas or even in gossipy tidbits that showcase Nye's real and imagined interactions with living and dead poets, activists, musicians, and ordinary people who made a difference in her life. Such focus renders the poems intimate and moving if ultimately nostalgic, lamenting the days before the busyness of social media consumed our attention and encouraging readers to take the time to stop, look, listen, and attend to the small yet image-rich details of our daily lives. Some poems are overtly political, taking quiet aim, but aim nonetheless, at policies that dispossess and rob people of respect and freedom. Place plays an important role here; well-traveled Nye's commitment to global awareness also makes an implicit argument that young poets should travel, though one of the most moving in the collection is an apostrophe poem comparing Nye's experience of a joyful childhood in Ferguson, Missouri to that of nine-year-old Jamyla Bolden, murdered while sitting on her bed in the same city. Between poems of grief, inspiration, admonition, and homage, young readers will find many rich veins to mine here, especially since Nye has helpfully provided both a luminous, sense-awakening introduction and brief biographical notes with reading or listening suggestions for everyone she references. Reviewed from an unillustrated galley. KC