Making a Fist

“Making a Fist” was first published in Grape Leaves: A Century of Arab American Poetry. The anthology, featuring 20 Arab poets, seeks to bring Arab-American poetry into the mainstream. Its editors, Gregory Orfalea and Sharif Elmusa, created a volume of work displaying the passion, vibrance, and love in Arab poetry. Many of the poems within the anthology are written in free verse, and most surround the topic of family. Mary Zoghby of Kennesaw State College comments: “The centrality of family in Arab-American poetry is simply a reflection of that emphasis in life” (Zoghby, Mary. MELUS, vol. 15, no. 4, 1988, pp. 91–101. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/466989. Accessed 7 Sept. 2021). The anthology has poets born across the 18th and 19th centuries, including Jamil Holway, Ameen Rihani, Mikhail Naimy, Elia Abu Madi, and Samuel Hazo.

Nye’s poem relates to the tradition of Arab poetry, with focus on community and family within individual experience. The mother in the poem is a source of comfort for the speaker’s child self, offering a grounding technique that the speaker carries into adulthood. Despite having “borders we must cross separately” (Line 13), Nye’s poem speaks to traditions passed through generations. The connection and comfort provided by the mother to her child is a focus within “Making a Fist,” much as such connections are the focus of traditional Arab poetry.