# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Naomi Shihab Nye was born on March 12, 1952, in St. Louis to a Palestinian father and an American mother. During her high school years, she lived in Ramallah in Palestine, the Old City in Jerusalem, and San Antonio, Texas, where she later received her BA in English and world religions from Trinity University.

Nye is the author of numerous books of poems, most recently Cast Away: Poems for Our Time (Greenwillow Books, 2020). Her other books of poetry include The Tiny Journalist (BOA Editions, 2019); Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners (Greenwillow Books, 2018); Transfer (BOA Editions, 2011); You and Yours (BOA Editions, 2005), which received the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award; and 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East (Greenwillow Books, 2002), a collection of new and selected poems about the Middle East. She is also the author of several books of poetry and fiction for children, including Habibi (Simon Pulse, 1997), for which she received the Jane Addams Children's Book Award in 1998.

Nye gives voice to her experience as an Arab American through poems about heritage and peace that overflow with a humanitarian spirit. About her work, the poet William Stafford has said, "her poems combine transcendent liveliness and sparkle along with warmth and human insight. She is a champion of the literature of encouragement and heart. Reading her work enhances life."

Nye's poems and short stories have appeared in various journals and reviews throughout North America, Europe, and the Middle and Far East. She has traveled to the Middle East and Asia for the United States Information Agency three times, promoting international goodwill through the arts.

Nye's honors include awards from the International Poetry Forum and the Texas Institute of Letters, the Carity Randall Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Lifetime Achievement Award, and four Pushcart Prizes. She has been a Lannan Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Witter Bynner Fellow. In 1988, she received the Academy of American Poets' Lavan Award, judged by W. S. Merwin.

Nye served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2010 to 2015, and is the Poetry Foundation's Young People's Poet Laureate from 2019-21. In April 2022, for National Poetry Month, Nye will be the Guest Editor of Poem-a-Day. She currently lives in San Antonio.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Naomi Shihab Nye - Naomi Shihab Nye gives voice to her experience as an Arab-American through poems about heritage and peace that overflow with a humanitarian spirit.

# data[].attributes.headline
Naomi Shihab Nye's Perspective on Humanity and Immigration:

# data[].attributes.subject
Naomi Shihab Nye's Perspective on Humanity and Immigration:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Rochester, New York. BOA Editions. 2019. 128 pages.

Whether a product of the twenty-four-hour news cycle or an ancient survival mechanism, it is exceedingly easy for us to cordon ourselves off from the suffering of others. Before reading The Tiny Journalist, I was thoroughly cordoned off from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; such a complicated issue, so burdened by history and belief, where to even start? While Naomi Shihab Nye's newest book of poetry offers no easy answers, its questions push well beyond the margin of the pages. What happens when we're reminded not just of human rights injustices but of the quotidian moments in the lives of those affected? Reminded that they too live in this very modern world, with wants and needs as expansive and equally as simple as our own?

The daughter of a Palestinian immigrant to the US, Shihab Nye transports readers to a world in which she must often live, where the daily realities of Palestine and the US are nestled intimately close together. The beginning of "Separation Wall" could easily be a call to action in either place: "When the milk is sour, / it separates. // The next time you stop speaking, / ask yourself why you were born."

Bringing what is as concrete, known, and essential as milk into the harsh language of resistance, the lines compel us to recognize the privilege of silence afforded by distance. Startled spaces like this created between the poems and the world continue to echo for me; a volley of fresh, visual metaphors spoken on behalf of those who have often been most powerless in the face of violence.

Janna Jihad Ayyad-a self-proclaimed journalist at the age of seven and a child of Palestine-is both the book's namesake and its "unburdened alphabet." Throughout the work, and often through Janna's own words, Shihab Nye exalts the wisdom and uncluttered hope of children and of imagination. In "Dead Sea"-a poem that manages to hold within it everything the surrounding poems aim to reach in their orbit-it is just such magic that offers to save the speaker from her own cynicism, a spring that "had secrets and knew where jewels were, / in a house nobody lived in, and only children / would ever find the key."

Fearless in the face of unrelenting power, the poems are at once tactile and enraged, refusing to acknowledge anyone's ability to constrain language. In "38 Billion," the speaker harnesses the simplicity of a list to highlight what US dollars could buy instead of weapons. Reading each benign item-"Eggs . . . Ribbons . . . Really Soft Pillows. . ."-we are reminded of the absolute brutality of the alternative.

With very few exceptions, the poems in the book are deeply powerful both on their own and in their connections to one another. In "Losing as Its Own Flower," the natural imagery assigned to hope as well as that assigned to suffering reminds us of the steadfastness of both: "Truth unfolds in the gardens, / massive cabbages, succulent tomatoes, / orange petals billowing, / even when the drought is long. . . . / In a way, we did lose. Where is everybody? / Scattered around the world like pollen."

This book has been for me a difficult and necessary starting point; a chance to repopulate the Palestine that I have been continually fed with living, breathing, and profoundly hopeful human beings. No matter what your beliefs, no matter where you stand on this conflict, no one can argue that that is a bad thing.
Bailey Hoffner
University of Oklahoma

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Rochester, New York. BOA Editions. 2019. 128 pages. Whether a product of the twenty-four-hour news cycle or an ancient survival mechanism, it is exceedingly easy for us to cordon ourselves off from the suffering of others. Before reading The Tiny Journalist, I was thoroughly cordoned off from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; such a complicated issue, so burdened by history and belief, where to even start?

# data[].attributes.headline
Naomi Shihab Nye's Source of Inspiration:

# data[].attributes.subject
Naomi Shihab Nye's Source of Inspiration:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Naomi Shihab Nye on What Inspires Her Poetry

# data[].attributes.headline
Analytical Reflection of "The Man Who Hated Trees"

# data[].attributes.subject
Analytical Reflection of "The Man Who Hated Trees"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Naomi Shihab Nye, "Burning the Old Year" from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Portland, Oregon: Far Corner Books, 1995). Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Reprinted with the permission of the author.

Source: Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Far Corner Books, 1995)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Burning the Old Year by Naomi Shihab Nye | Poetry Foundation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Turtle Shrine Near Chittagong by Naomi Shihab Nye

# data[].attributes.headline
Analytical Reflection of "Burning the Old Year"

# data[].attributes.subject
Analytical Reflection of "Burning the Old Year"

# data[].attributes.body
Naomi Shihab Nye was born in St. Louis, Missouri on March 12, 1952, where she would later spend her childhood in Jerusalem and San Antonio, Texas. Each three locations would have a lasting influence on the themes and motifs within her poems. Her parents come from different backgrounds. Her father was Palestinian and her mother was American. A combination of her family’s heritage and her personal experiences in San Antonio and Ramallah would contribute to her perspective on cultural differences and promotion of a shared humanity. Particularly, she attributes her perspective to her local life of dialogue on streets, to the observation of ancestry.

In San Antonio, she encapsulated the voices of her neighbors, of which were mostly Mexican American. Nye listens to each individual story and enjoys how each person is unique, yet shares a common goal. Additionally, she utilizes elements from religions from the Middle East and Native Americans. Using her knowledge from across the globe, the highlights the shared experiences of immigrants despite originating from different locations and cultures. Within her poems, she isn’t afraid to touch sensitive issues, such as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, resonating with the common struggle of inhabitants in the region. With hope for peace, she connects to others, proclaiming that all Americans have ties to foreign countries, and each concern is truly universal.

Naomi Shihab Nye has won a multitude of awards, receiving: the Lavan Award, the Paterson Poetry Prize, the Carity Randall Prize, the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, the Lee Bennet Hopkins Poetry Award, the Robert Creeley Prize, and more. She joined as the Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2010 from 2015. Today, she lives with her family in San Antonio, yet she continues to recall the memories of her distant travels.

1.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/naomi-shihab-nye
2. http://www.famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/naomi_shihab_nye/biography
3.
https://www.barclayagency.com/speakers/naomi-shihab-nye/