One Boy Told Me Analysis

The poem “One Boy Told Me” by Naomi Shihab Nye, was told by her son when he was two and three years of age. His comments, thoughts, and remarks were jotted down verbatim by Naomi and pieced together to create the one of a kind free verse poem. Nye assembled the phrases into individual stanza’s where they coherently flow to one another to illustrate the mind of a toddler. Wide ranges of emotions and personalities invoke the inner child and their curiosity. Overall, her son’s interpretations of his surroundings and understandings are represented in how the idioms expressed set the stage for intrusiveness, humor, and poetic devices to contribute to the overall meaning.

“One Boy Told Me” encompasses the mind of a curious child who has his own interpretations and points of view on how things work in society. From a young age, the world is

For example, the child asks, “Is it true all metal was liquid first?” and comes up with a unique and logical thought that if they were to have bought their car earlier then it would be served in a cup since cars are made up of mostly metals. The use of humor and tone of the poem can be seen in this stanza because it shows the innocence and thought process of a child. Imagination is effortless, and dreams are made to come true. The poet’s son mind depicts his mother walking in real life New York to indicate the imaginative construct that has formulated in the child’s thoughts. His knowledge of bees is limited to that of making honey and comments to “invit[ing] a bee to live in [her] shoe” and makes a connection that the shoe will be filled with honey. The imagery of a “shoe full of honey” indicates that toddlers possess a unique thought process with a rationale for their theories. “Can noodles swim” is a personification where the boy gives noodles the human characteristic of swimming because they seem to move and float in