Naomi Shihab Nye primarily writes free-verse poetry full of images inspired by everyday life. Her most well-known poems, “Famous” and “So Much Happiness,” remain well-loved in part for their hopeful perspective on normal life and the significance of its minutiae. “Alphabet” explores the more anxious side of this recurring theme in Shihab Nye’s work. Whereas the imagery in “So Much Happiness” portrays the inevitability of happiness, even amongst “soiled linens” and “noise and dust,” the imagery in “Alphabet” lingers on concrete objects as lingering reminders of loss. The speaker in this poem feels disconnected from the past and from broader humanity—and their smallness begins to feels ominous as they think of what the future holds. If read in the context of Shihab Nye’s writing on immigrant and child-of-immigrant identity, one might see a secondary loss present in the poem: not only the loss of knowledge of this neighborhood but also the loss of inherited traditions from older relatives with closer connections to past homes.

In the 2011 poem “Refugee Not Always,” Shihab Nye writes of her father, Aziz Shihab, who was born and raised in Jerusalem.