Understanding the “Other” in Naomi Shihab Nye’s You & Yours

As a significant ethnic group in the United States, Arab American poets have always used the personal to tackle larger political themes in their poetry. Many writers have reacted to the political events around them, such as 9/11, and this includes Naomi Shihab Nye. In “Naomi Shihab Nye’s Aesthetic of Smallness and the Military Sublime,” Samina Najmi argues that the few critics who write about Nye do not focus on her “overtly political” 9/11 poetry. Nye deals with this theme in You & Yours directing the reader’s attention to the outcomes of 9/11 and war torn territoires in the Middle East. In You & Yours, Nye repeatedly educates her readers by invoking sympathy for the other and observing their way of life, eventually allowing the reader to see a reality that they rarely observe in the news; the suffering, the pain and the humane part of the “Other.”