Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Naomi Shihab Nye’s "Morning Paper, Society Page" is a brief but striking meditation on contrast—the ephemeral glamour of fashion set against the permanence of death. The poem juxtaposes images of high fashion with the stark reality of human remains, challenging the superficiality of societal beauty standards and suggesting an inevitable reckoning with mortality.

The opening lines immediately establish this contrast: "I can never see fashion models, lean angular cheeks, strutting hips and blooming hair, without thinking of the skulls at the catacombs in Lima, Peru." The fashion models, with their exaggerated physicality and commanding presence, are defined by movement—“strutting”—and vitality—“blooming hair.” They represent an ideal of beauty that is celebrated in magazines, a carefully curated and fleeting image of perfection. However, this image is instantly disrupted by the speaker’s association with the skulls in the catacombs of Lima, a reminder of what lies beneath beauty, of what remains when all surface adornment has disappeared.

The descent into the catacombs is described with a sense of transition: "How we climbed down from blurred markets to find a thousand unnamed friends smiling at us." The blurred markets suggest the busy, indistinct world of commerce and daily life, a place of distractions. The shift from this environment to the catacombs represents a confrontation with something more profound and enduring. The thousand unnamed friends introduces an eerie familiarity—the dead are not depicted as strangers but as silent companions, reminders of a shared human fate. The irony of their smiling evokes both the natural shape of the skull and a subtle commentary on how death is often overlooked or romanticized.

The final lines deliver the poem’s most cutting observation: "as if they too could advertise a coming style." This darkly ironic statement links the dead to the world of fashion, suggesting that, just like trends, life itself is temporary. The models, admired for their youth and physical perfection, are not immune to time. The comparison suggests that, in the end, all bodies will be reduced to the same skeletal structure, that beauty is as transient as the fashion industry itself.

"Morning Paper, Society Page" is a poem that resists superficiality, using stark contrast to highlight the fleeting nature of beauty and the inescapability of death. Through its sharp imagery and ironic tone, Naomi Shihab Nye challenges the reader to reconsider what is valued in society and what ultimately endures. The poem’s brevity strengthens its impact, leaving the reader with an unsettling yet profound realization: behind every image of glamour is the truth of mortality, waiting quietly beneath the surface.

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