Naomi Shihab Nye


Naomi Shihab Nye is a poet, songwriter, and novelist. She was born to a Palestinian father and an American mother. She began composing her first poem at the age of six and has published or contributed to over 30 volumes. Her works include poetry, young-adult fiction, picture books, and novels. Although she calls herself a "wandering poet", she refers to San Antonio as her home. She says a visit to her grandmother in the West Bank village of Sinjil was a life-changing experience. Nye received the 2013 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature in honor of her entire body of work as a writer, and in 2019 the Poetry Foundation designated her the Young People's Poet Laureate for the 2019–21 term.

Biography

Naomi Shihab Nye is a poet and songwriter born in 1952 to a Palestinian father and American mother. She grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, Jerusalem, and San Antonio, Texas. However, San Antonio is where she considers home, "San Antonio feels most like home as I have lived here the longest. But everywhere can be home the moment you unpack, make a tiny space that feels agreeable". San Antonio is the inspiration behind many of her poems. Both roots and sense of place are major themes in her body of work.
Her first collection of poems, Different Ways to Pray, explored the theme of similarities and differences between cultures, which would become one of her lifelong areas of focus. Her other books include poetry collections 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, Red Suitcase, and Fuel; a collection of essays entitled Never in a Hurry; a young-adult novel called Habibi and picture book Lullaby Raft, which is also the title of one of her two albums of music.
Nye has edited many anthologies of poems, for audiences both young and old. One of the best-known is This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from around the World, which contains translated work by 129 poets from 68 different countries. Her most recent anthology is called Is This Forever, Or What?: Poems & Paintings from Texas. Her poems are frank and accessible, often making use of ordinary images in startling ways. Her ability to enter into foreign experiences and chronicle them from the inside is reminiscent of Elizabeth Bishop, while her simple and direct "voice" is akin to that of her mentor William Stafford.
She has won many awards and fellowships, among them four Pushcart Prizes, the Jane Addams Children's Book Award, the Paterson Poetry Prize, and many notable book and best book citations from the American Library Association. She has been a Lannan Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Witter Bynner Fellow. Today Shihab Nye lives in San Antonio, Texas with her family. She characterizes herself as a "wandering poet," and says that much of her poetry is inspired by her childhood memories and her travels.

Career

Nye's first two chapter books, Tattooed Feet and Eye-to-Eye, are written in free verse and possess themes of questing. Nye's first full-length collection, Different Ways to Pray, explores the differences between and shared experiences of cultures from California to Texas and from South America to Mexico. Hugging the Jukebox, a full-length collection that won the Voertman Poetry Prize, focuses on the connections between diverse peoples and on the perspectives of those in other lands. Yellow Glove presents poems with more tragic and sorrowful themes. According to the Poetry Foundation, Fuel may be Nye's most acclaimed volume and ranges over a variety of subjects, scenes and settings.
Nye's poem Famous was referenced and quoted in full by Judge Andre Davis in his concurring opinion on the case G. G. v. Gloucester County School Board.

Awards and recognition

Nye has won many awards and fellowships, among them four Pushcart Prizes, the Jane Addams Children's Book Award, the Paterson Poetry Prize, and many notable book and best book citations from the American Library Association, and a 2,000 Witter Bynner Fellowship. In 1997, Trinity University, her alma mater, honored her with the Distinguished Alumna Award.
In June 2009, Nye was named as one of PeaceByPeace.com's first peace heroes. In 2013, Nye won the Robert Creeley Award.
In October 2012, she was named laureate of the 2013 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature. The NSK Prize is a juried award sponsored by the University of Oklahoma and World Literature Today magazine. In her nominating statement, Ibtisam Barakat, the juror who championed Nye for the award wrote, "Naomi's incandescent humanity and voice can change the world, or someone's world, by taking a position not one word less beautiful than an exquisite poem." Barakat commended her work by saying, "Naomi's poetry masterfully blends music, images, colors, languages, and insights into poems that ache like a shore pacing in ebb and flow, expecting the arrival of meaning."
In 2019, the Poetry Foundation designated Nye their Young People's Poet Laureate for the 2019–21 term. The Foundation's announcement characterized Nye's writing style as one that "moves seamlessly between ages in a way that is accessible, warm, and sophisticated even for the youngest of readers."

Published works

Poetry