Morning Song

Naomi Shihab Nye

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2019

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

“Morning Song” is a free-verse poem, displaying no consistent rhyme scheme or meter. The discernible feature of this poem is its use of couplets—two-lined stanzas—which suggests an “us” vs. “them” situation. The only exception is the final line, which stands alone for emphasis. The lines often feature enjambment, or the continuation of a thought from line to line and even from stanza to stanza, as in the following: “She sees you at 2 a.m. adjusting your / impenetrable vest” (Lines 18-19).

Italics are another featured device in this poem. These lines read as inner dialogue with Nye using first-person pronouns, as if she is embodying the voice of Ayyad: “They pretended not to see us” (Line 31).

Metaphor

In stanza eight, Nye uses a metaphor to suggest Ayyad’s prowess: “If you stomp her garden / each leaf expands its view” (Lines 15-16). In this section of the poem, Nye speaks of how larger than life the tiny journalist is despite her small size and young age. The comparison of Ayyad’s world to a garden implies the blooming and blossoming of which she is capable as she grows and learns more about the world around her. In fact, she has already had to grow up before her time because of her challenging living conditions. This metaphor also reads like a cautionary statement since the act of stomping will not crush her garden, as her enemies might expect, but instead will make everything grow larger. In other words, the pain her enemies inflict upon her only makes her more knowledgeable and aware and, therefore, more motivated to share what she experiences with the world.

Alongside this metaphor, Nye also compares the constant fighting to a “rising fire” (Line 37), which the journalist is able to sense “before anyone strikes a match” (Line 38). As with the garden metaphor, this use of figurative language makes Ayyad appear larger than life and, ultimately, more capable of making change than her age might suggest.

Imagery

Visual imagery is the most prominent form of imagery in “Morning Song.” Nye describes a simple smartphone with the simile, “Holds it high / like a balloon” (Lines 6-7). As a result of this comparison, the phone embodies a spiritual quality that makes the phone a source of strength and power. The balloon is an appropriate image for a young girl who would rather “dance and play” (Line 8) but instead records the injustices around her.

Nye also highlights just how large the tiny journalist is, offering contrast in the poem. On the one hand, the journalist is a petite young girl, but the line “she’s bigger than you are” (Line 14) suggests she is capable of expanding beyond expectations, almost like a balloon filling with air. The visual imagery increases when Nye gives the readers a sense of what the journalist’s work is like amidst the “puffs of dust” (Line 29), which also evokes olfactory imagery, or sense of smell. This olfactory imagery is used again when Nye mentions a “rising fire” (Line 37), since she implies Ayyad can sniff it out before “anyone strikes a match” (Line 38). At the end of the poem, Nye employs aural imagery when writing about the “barricade of words” (Line 36). Not only is Ayyad capable of documenting with her phone “what she sees” (Line 2), but also what she hears.