17 pages • 34 minutes read
Naomi Shihab NyeBlood
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Form and Meter
“Blood” is a 29-line poem made up of five stanzas of uneven length. Shihab Nye has not used any specific rhyme scheme or meter, preferring to write in free verse. The poem has a conversational tone, which is reinforced by the use of direct speech and recorded exchanges between the poet and her father.
It also hints at the oral storytelling tradition of Palestinians, many of whom did not learn to write, such as the poet’s grandmother. Wisdom has been passed down through generations in the form of folk tales.
Shihab Nye says her poems arise from notebook extracts—every day, she jots down thoughts about “what is happening in the atmosphere,” looking for “tiny bits of ideas as they flow through” rather than “big ideas.”
The poem has a journal-like quality about it—it is made up of fragments, memories, conversations, and it gives the impression of having been composed spontaneously.
Although “Blood” has no set form beyond five irregular stanzas, the poet uses the framing device of time to shape each stanza. The first two stanzas refer to the past, when the speaker was a child and she first became aware that her father is a “true Arab” (Line 1).
The third stanza goes even further back in time, before the speaker knew what an Arab was. By the end of the stanza, she is herself considered a “true Arab” by her father (Line 15). This ties in with the first line of the poem, and the phrase “true Arab” is repeated in each of the first three stanzas, underscoring its importance. The repetition is both playful and artful—the word game links the poet to her father but also reinforces the fact that they are related, tied together by blood.
The fourth stanza brings the poem into the present with a jolt: “Today the headlines clot in my blood” (Line 16). This is the only stanza in which the word “blood”—the title of the poem—is mentioned, creating a contrast between the events set in America and those set in war-ravaged Palestine.
The fifth stanza, like the first three, revisits the idea of the “true Arab”, but the innocence of the first three stanzas—the teasing, humorous tone—has been replaced by a sense of helplessness: “What does a true Arab do now?” (Line 29).
Sound Devices
“Blood” is an informal, accessible poem that appears to verge on the prosaic but employs some poetic techniques that distinguish it from prose.
The poet uses alliteration, assonance, and consonance to create internal rhymes or set up internal rhythms that drive the lines forward and relates them to one another.
In the third line of the poem, “cupping the buzzer instantly” is a good example of assonance. “Buzzer” is a synonym for “fly,” the buzzing of the Zs is an onomatopoeia for the creature here, and the soft sounds of the assonance demonstrates how the speaker’s father would gently cup the fly in his hands and release it outside. This contrasts with the alliterative phrase “the host with the swatter stared”—the single syllables and blunt consonance suggest a more forceful, less creative solution to the problem of flies in the house.
In this way, the speaker provides a concrete description of her father—a “true Arab”—as gentle and considerate. This contrasts with the abstract impression of an Arab given in the third stanza, when a girl at the door asks to see “the Arab” (Line 9); here, the speaker’s father is an idea, unnamed and symbolic of all Arabs, and clearly a fearful or intimidating figure.
In the second stanza, the poet uses alliteration to create a mood: “In the spring our palms peeled like snakes.” (Line 5) The sibilance of the S sound calls to mind the hissing of snakes while “palms peeled” mimics the skin peeling from the poet’s hands. The words “believed,” “heal” (Line 6), and “these” (Line 7) in the stanza create an internal rhyme that knits the lines together, suggesting remedy.
The alliteration of “Shihab”—“shooting star” / a good name, borrowed from the sky” (Lines 11-12) indicates the speaker’s identity is closely bound up with nature and natural phenomena. However, when she refers to “stone and seed” (Line 20), all that is natural is cut off at the “terrible root” (Line 18). The sibilance conveys a sense of confusion as it conveys both wonder and devastation.
Related Titles
By Naomi Shihab Nye
