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Smaller than a Mouse

Smaller than a Mouse

Why does the media treat a dead mouse as more important than an anti-war protest?
By , | April 26, 2012

Naomi Shihab Nye

We demonstrated on a steaming day,
carrying signs.
Five hundred thousand people
in the streets of New York
saying no to war
crowds gathering for blocks and miles,
crush and press of all the world’s religions
and secular codes,
WE SHALL NOT KILL
and the next day our story,
the story of saying no to war,
was written up in a three-sentence news item
on the back of the front section of The New York Times
smaller than the story of a sad mouse found in a
chain restaurant soup.
This is the truth.

 

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Naomi Shihab Nye has written or edited 33 books, the most recent being Transfer (poems) and There Is No Long Distance Now (very short stories). She is a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus and was a featured poet at the 2008 and 2012 Split This Rock poetry festival. Melissa Tuckey is the poetry editor for Foreign Policy In Focus and on the board of Split This Rock.