Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Middle Grade | Published in 2007

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2, Chapters 1-6

Part 2, Chapters 7-11

Part 2, Chapters 12-14

Part 2, Chapters 15-18 and Part 3

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Index of Terms

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Literary Devices

Memoir

Tasting the Sky is a memoir, a first-person nonfiction account of a specific time in Ibtisam’s life. The word memoir comes from the French word “mémoire,” which means “memory” or “reminisce.” In her memoir, Ibtisam remembers and reflects on her experiences as a child during the Six-Day War.

Ibtisam uses techniques found in fictional narratives to tell the true story of her childhood. She is her memoir’s protagonist, and her family and other real-life figures are the three-dimensional characters in her narrative. Ibtisam depicts her memories as individual scenes that make up a whole. She carefully describes setting, utilizes visual imagery, and emphasizes the impact of her experiences on the child she was. Ibtisam, who became a college professor later in life, now offers seminars called “Write Your Life!” which help others explore their memories and find their voices.

Ibtisam’s memoir follows a story arc. Her narrative is framed by her experience, a decade later, of her bus being stopped by Israeli soldiers. This pivotal event allows her to look back and relive the memories of childhood losses that begin with the war and follow Ibtisam until her family are forced to flee again. The memoir also follows a character arc, showing how Ibtisam transforms from beginning to end. Ibtisam, initially stopped at a literal checkpoint on the bus, figuratively moves past the emotional “checkpoint” she has placed on her memories by the end of her narrative and grows in self-knowledge. Ibtisam’s memoir, with its focus on her personal experiences and feelings, conveys a sense of intimacy, keeping the reader engaged and emotionally connected to the author’s life. Finally, a memoir typically contains a theme, concept, or argument: a message the author wants to convey. In Tasting the Sky, Ibtisam shares the devastating effects of war and the importance of the healing power of writing.

Frame Narrative

A frame narrative is a story that bookends a single story, or multiple stories. Ibtisam’s memoir is a single story framed by, or embedded in, a different opening and closing narrative. In Tasting the Sky, Ibtisam’s frame narrative begins on the bus in 1981 and consists of all of Part 1, “A Letter to Everyone.” Ibtisam then flashes back to 1967 to describe her childhood experiences, which are the body of her memoir, or all of Part 2, “The Postal Box of Memory: 1967-1971.” She returns to the frame narrative in Part 3, “A Letter to Everyone,” bringing the memoir back to its start, showing her transformation, and giving a sense of closure. The frame technique gives readers context about what they are going to encounter in the embedded story. From the opening frame, readers are introduced to key figures and learn that Ibtisam will be exploring childhood memories that she has worked to avoid.

Free Verse

Ibtisam incorporates original poetry in both the first and last sections of her memoir. Ibtisam is an accomplished poet—she won the National Library of Poetry’s Outstanding Poetry Award in 1994, and her poems are anthologized in several works including Shattered (2002). The poems in Tasting the Sky are free verse poems as opposed to formal verse.

Ibtisam’s poems do not utilize a regular meter or have a consistent rhyme scheme. The poems do not follow any structural requirements as to how many lines each should have or how those lines should be divided. In contrast, consider a “formal” Shakespearean sonnet, which must have 14 lines, divided into 3 quatrains of 4 lines each and ending with a final 2-line couplet. The Shakespearean sonnet has a specific rhyme scheme and is written in iambic pentameter. Free verse poems are open form, unrestricted by meter, rhyme scheme, and structure. Free verse became popular in the 19th century when writers sought to break away from old, constraining conventions. Walt Whitman, arguably the “father of free verse,” helped popularize this candid, personal form of poetry.

Just because free verse poetry does not play by formal rules does not mean it does not include rhyme or rhythm or that it is not carefully constructed. Rhyme and meter are used, but less formally, echoing the natural patterns of speech in its cadence and pauses. Free verse utilizes sounds, like alliteration, assonance, and consonance, to create rhyme. Repetition, refrain, and internal rhyme are also often used instead of formal end rhyme. Freedom from a specific rhyme scheme gives poets more word choices. Free verse also incorporates pauses to convey meaning using line stops and enjambments. For example, Ibtisam writes, “Like a bird flinging / Its freedom songs / Across the sky” illustrating in these few lines the subtlety of sound and rhythm possible in a free verse poem. Readers hear the consonance of the “f” in “flinging” and “freedom,” and the “s” in “songs,” “across,” and “sky.” The enjambment, or continuation of the phrase across multiple lines, suggests the speed and motion of the bird. Free verse is currently the most published type of poetry by contemporary poets.