All Things Not Considered, within its attempt in visualizing the chaotic state of war, prolifically utilised the essence of empathy, sympathy, and saddened aspects of the war massacre. In comprehending the general subject of its subliminal content (in producing preliminary responses) if biographical criticism perspective one could grasp Shihab Nye's background through any source (perhaps the internet), they would effortlessly understand the whole context of the poem.
“This article explores the connection between Naomi Shihab Nye's life as a writer who lives in the relative safety of the American Southwest and her emotional and familial connection to Palestine, a land torn by war. For Shihab Nye, the war in Palestine is personal because this is her ancestral homeland.” - Extreme realities: Naomi Shihab Nye's essays and poems. The Free Library online journal.
If
one was about to decode the whole poem during the first glance,
utilizing a reader
response criticism of
course, it would take more than just centering the fact that she is
a Palestinian-American whose emotional connected to a
land torn by war.
The
opening of the poem rely vastly on the depiction of pathetic outcome
of war. Impartially distributing sympathy by dropping both jewish and
muslims name providing firm stance which clarify war does not categorised its victim. One could recognised the repetition of the
adjective 'holy',
which
in my perspective a word with strong semantic meaning comprehended in
the essence of 'dedicated
or consecrated to God or a religious purpose; sacred.'
Ironically
put, 'holy'
here
stands for firm belief in God and something morally good, but with
chaotic output of death,
hate, terror and
ugly.
With that being said, within my own perspective, war in the name of
religion resulting from false
supremacy
is
a universal subject where the poem attempt to question the act of
humans and its interelativity with religion;
No one was right.
Everyone was wrong.
What if they’d get together
and say that?At a certain pointthe flawed narrator wins.
If
theres any new religion, I would suggest it would be a religion of
hate fueled by universal imbecility.