Naomi Shihab Nye


Naomi Shihab Nye is a Palestinian American poet, editor, songwriter, and novelist. Born to a Palestinian father and an American mother, she began composing her first poetry at the age of six. In total, she has published more than thirty-five books and contributed to hundreds of others. Her works include poetry, young-adult fiction, picture books, and novels. Nye has received numerous awards throughout her career, including the 2013 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature, served as the Poetry Foundation's Young People's Poet Laureate for the 2019–22 terms, and, in 2024, she received the Wallace Stevens Award and the Texas Writers Award.

Early life

Naomi Shihab Nye is a poet and songwriter born in 1952 to a Palestinian father, Aziz Shihab, who worked as a journalist, editor and writer, and American mother, Miriam Allwardt Shihab, an artist who worked as a Montessori school teacher. Her father grew up in Palestine. He and his family became refugees in the 1948 Nakba, when the state of Israel was created. She has said her father "seemed a little shell-shocked when I was a child."
She grew up initially in Ferguson, St. Louis County, Missouri. Her mother studied under Philip Guston and Max Beckmann at Washington University in St. Louis. In 1966, when Nye was 14, the family moved to the West Bank, then part of Jordan. After less than a year, before the 1967 Six-Day War occurred, they moved to San Antonio, Texas.
Nye graduated from Robert E. Lee High School, where she was editor of the literary magazine. She earned a BA in English and world religions from Trinity University in 1974 and continued to live and work in San Antonio thereafter.

Career

Teaching writing

After graduation, Nye worked as a writer-in-schools with the Texas Commission on the Arts. She has continued to teach writing workshops, mostly to kids. Currently, she teaches creative writing at Texas State University.

Writing

Nye characterizes herself as a "wandering poet," and says that much of her poetry is inspired by her childhood memories and her travels. She considers San Antonio her current 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 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.
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 of poems, 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. Her other poetry collections include 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, Red Suitcase, and Fuel. ''Yellow Glove presents poems with more tragic and sorrowful themes. Other notable books include 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. 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.
Her poem So much happiness was included in the 'Happiness' edition of Parabola''.

Editing anthologies

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.

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 1997, Nye became a Guggenheim Poetry Fellow. In 2000, Nye became a Witter Bynner Fellow, awarded by the Library of Congress. In 2002, she became a Lannan Literary Fellow. 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."
In 2023, she was awarded an honorary degree from Vermont College of Fine Arts.
In 2024, Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture established the Naomi Shihab Nye Prize for writers in the Arab community to create book length stories for and about young Arab Readers. In that same year she also received the Wallace Stevens Award for lifetime achievement from the Academy of American Poets and the Texas Writer Award, which included a custom pair of turquoise boots.

Personal life

Although she calls herself a "wandering poet", Nye refers to San Antonio as her home and lives there with her family. She says a visit to her grandmother in the West Bank village of Sinjil was a life-changing experience. In 1978, she married Michael Nye, who worked initially as an attorney and later on photography and on writing on topics including hunger, teenage pregnancy and mental illness. They have one son and a grandson.

Published works

Poetry

  • On the Edge of the Sky. Iguana Press. 1981.
  • Invisible: Poems. The Trilobite Press. 1987.
  • Mint. State Street Press Chapbooks. 1991.
  • Words Under the Words. The Eighth Mountain Press. 1994..
  • Mint Snowball. Anhinga Press. 2001.. Baby Radar. lllustrated by Nancy Carpenter. Greenwillow Books, 2003.A Maze Me: Poems for Girls. Greenwillow Books. 2005. Tender Spot: Selected Poems. Bloodaxe Books. 2008.
  • Sometimes I Pretend: A Poem . Santa Cruz, California: Peter and Donna Thomas. 2014.
  • The Tiny Journalist: Poems. BOA Editions, Ltd. 2019.
  • "Kindness"

Children's poetry

What Have You Lost?. Greenwillow Books. 1999..
  • Come With Me: Poems for a Journey. Greenwillow Books. 2000.. Is This Forever or What?: Poems and Paintings from Texas. Greenwillow Books. 2003..
  • 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East. Greenwillow Books. 2005.. Honeybee: poems & short prose. Greenwillow Books. 2008. .Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners. Greenwillow Books. 2018..Everything Comes Next: Collected and New Poems. Greenwillow Books. 2020. Cast Away: Poems of Our Time. Greenwillow Books. 2021 Grace Notes: Poems about Families. Greenwillow Books. 2024.

Poetry in anthologies

Other children's books

Sitti’s Secrets. Illustrated by Nancy Carpenter. Four Winds Press, 1994.

Essays

Never in a Hurry: Essays on People and Places. University of South Carolina Press. 1996..

Novels

Habibi. Simon Pulse. 1999..Going, Going. Greenwillow Books. 2005. The Turtle of Oman. Greenwillow Books. 2014..The Turtle of Michigan. Greenwillow Books. 2022..

Short stories

  • Hamadi
  • ''Tomorrow, Summer''

Discography

  • ''Rutabaga-Roo – I've Got a Song and It's for You''

Editor

  • Naomi Shihab Nye, ed.. The Tree Is Older Than You Are: A Bilingual Gathering of Poems & Stories from Mexico with Paintings by Mexican Artists. Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing..
  • Naomi Shihab Nye, Paul B. Janeczko, eds.. I Feel a Little Jumpy Around You: Paired Poems by Men & Women. Simon & Schuster..
  • Naomi Shihab Nye, ed.. The Space Between Our Footsteps. Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing..
  • Naomi Shihab Nye, ed.. Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25. Greenwillow Books..

Critical studies

  • Abouddahab, Rédouane. "The Life of ‘Words under the Words.’ The Father Figure, Mourning, and the Music of Desire in Naomi Shihab Nye’s ‘Brushing Lives.’" Revue Française d’Études Américaines 170 : 83-96.
  • Abouddahab, Rédouane. "The Father as a Figure of Exile: Desire and Sublimation in Naomi Shihab Nye’s ‘My Father and the Figtree’." In S. Brownlie and R. Abouddahab, eds., Figures of the Migrant: The Roles of Literature and the Arts in Representing Migration, New York and London, Routledge, 2022, 127-146.
  • Gómez-Vega, Ibis. "The Art of Telling Stornoyies in the Poetry of Naomi Shihab Nye." MELUS 26.4 : 245-252.
  • Gómez-Vega, Ibis. "Extreme Realities: Naomi Shihab Nye's Essays and Poems." Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 30 : 109-133.
  • Mercer, Lorraine, and Linda Strom. "Counter Narratives: Cooking Up Stories of Love and Loss in Naomi Shihab Nye's Poetry and Diana Abu-Jaber's Crescent." MELUS 32.4 :
  • Orfalea, Gregory. "Doomed by Our Blood to Care: The Poetry of Naomi Shihab Nye." Paintbrush 18.35 : 56-66.

Forewords

  • Clack, Cary,. Clowns and Rats Scare Me. Trinity University Press.
  • Stafford, William,. The Osage Orange Tree. Trinity University Press.
  • Ornelas, Christopher,. Name Them—They Fly Better: Pat Hammond’s Theory of Aerodynamics. Trinity University Press.