Naomi Shihab Nye
| Naomi Shihab Nye | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
March 12, 1952 St. Louis, Missouri, United States |
| Occupation | Poet, Songwriter |
| Genre | Poetry |
Naomi Shihab Nye (Arabic: نعومي شهاب ناي), (born March 12, 1952) is a poet, songwriter, and novelist. She was born to a Palestinian father and an American mother. 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 was the recipient of the 2014 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature.
At the age of 9, Nye began writing poems for a magazine article. She was influenced by her mother. Many of her early works were based on things such as cats, squirrels, friends, teachers, etc. When she was fourteen she moved to the West Bank with her family. There she visited her Palestinian grandmother and moved back to San Antonio a year later, while the Six Day War was brewing. She attended Trinity University, receiving a BA in English and world religions, and lives in San Antonio to this day.
These experiences of being part of both a majority and minority in cultures heavily influenced her political views and would eventually become part of the messages in her many collections of poetry. Her book Fuel is an example. Some of her earlier works were published in Seventeen, Modern Poetry Studies, and Ironwood.
She refers to herself as the “wandering poet” because she has traveled the world to hold writing workshops and inspire people of all ages for about 40 years. She is an author of many poetry books and children fictions. Her poems are based on heritage and peace and are connected to her experience as an Arab-American. Her work has been acknowledged by many journals and reviews throughout the world. In 2009, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
She is married to photographer Michael Nye and together they have a son named Madison.
Nye’s first two chapter books, Tattooed Feet (1977) and Eye-to-Eye (1978), are written in free verse and possess themes of questing. Nye’s first full-length collection, Different Ways to Pray (1980), explores the differences between and shared experiences of cultures from California to Texas and from South America to Mexico. Hugging the Jukebox (1982), 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 (1986) presents poems with more tragic and sorrowful themes. According to the Poetry Foundation, Fuel (1998) may be Nye’s most acclaimed volume and ranges over a variety of subjects, scenes and settings.
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