Different Senses of Place in the Poetry of Naomi Shihab Nye and Etel Adnan: An Interdisciplinary Perspective

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze the different senses of place in the poetry of Naomi Shihab Nye and Etel Adnan according to Eyles' categorization of senses of place. Eyles' model is selected due to the fact that Eyles is one of the first geographers to construct a scale of sense of place which identifies ten different categories. Both Nye and Adnan express their attachment to their place of origin in poetry written outside their homelands. Yet, each of the two poets uses a different approach in expressing her sense of place. Nye produces 'character poems' which focus on describing how particular characters give significance to specific places through their actions. Her aim is to reveal the social and cultural identity of the people of her ancestral homeland. Nye, in this sense, is socially, domestically and culturally oriented in treating her sense of place. Consequently, she displays more than one sense of place in her poetry. She shows a nostalgic sense, a social sense and a family sense of place. There is also the way of life sense and the sense of rootedness. All these various senses of place are linked to the various characters who represent the typical Palestinian community. Unlike Naomi Shihab Nye, Etel Adnan produces 'crisis poems' in the sense that she focuses on the massacres in her homeland during the Lebanese civil war. Therefore, her approach is politically oriented. What concerns her most in her poems is the innocent people of Lebanon, those who suffer torture, oppression and cruelty. Adnan is closely attached to such people due to her sense of rootedness. Moreover, what distinguishes Adnan's sense of place is the way she universalizes her attitude towards the crisis of her homeland. She achieves this by tracing its historical development since prehistoric times, and by showing that the collapse of her homeland marks the end of the world. Both poets, therefore, find their own way of expressing the fact that they neither suffer from displacement nor do they feel alienated from their homelands. On the contrary, both poets are still attached to their homelands but each in her own way.