“Trying to Name What Doesn’t Change”

Naomi Shihab NyeLiz Guilmette, Olivia Spathakis, Leah Howard

Naomi Shihab Nye

• Born: March 12, 1952 in St. Louis, Missouri

• Arab/American background- specifically half Palestinian and American

• Has moved many times throughout her lifetime

• First poem was published when she was seven in a children's magazine

• Also a songwriter and novelist

• Wrote a realistic fiction teen novel entitled Habibi that is about her experiences from moving from St. Louis to Palestine

Inspiration“For me the primary source of poetry has always been local life, random

characters met on the streets, our own ancestry sifting down to us through small essential daily talks”

• Poems read by her mother

• Young people

• Stories and folktales

told by her father

• Travels

• Moving

• “Making A Fist”

Making A FistFor the first time, on the road north of Tampico,I felt the life sliding out of me,a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.I was seven, I lay in the carwatching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass.My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.

“How do you know if you are going to die?”I begged my mother.We had been traveling for days.With strange confidence she answered,“When you can no long make a fist.”

Years later I smile to think of that journey,the borders we must cross separately,stamped with our unanswerable woes.I who did not die, who am still living,still lying in the backseat behind all my questions, clenching and opening one small hand.

Quotesabout writing and inspiration

“I loved learning words, feeling them inside my own mouth, recognizing the tasty ones in print.”

“We should all be serving young people, no matter what we do, creating a world in which young people may be nourished, fortified, inspired.”

“We should all be serving the environment- it is such a precarious moment where the natural world is concerned. this impulse and devotion should be everywhere.”

“Working always felt like resting to me.”

Themes/Content

• Culture/ heritage

• Family

• Personal life

• Politics

• People/ objects

• Morals

• Helping others

Hidden

If you place a fern

under a stone

the next day it will be

nearly invisible

as if the stone has

swallowed it.

If you tuck the name of a loved one

under your tongue too long

without speaking it

it becomes blood

sigh

the little sucked-in breath of air

hiding everywhere

beneath your words.

No one sees

the fuel that feeds you.

Literary Devices

• Dialogue

• Repetition

• Imagery

• Figurative language

• Rhetorical questions

“The river is famous to the fish.”- Famous

Style

• Changes point of view

Narrative

Free Verse

Mood- light and pleasant but serious

Tone- hopeful

Truth SerumWe made it from the ground-up corn in the old black pasture.

Pinched a scent of night jasmine billowing off the fence,

Popped it right in.

That frog song wanting nothing but echo?

We used that.

Stirred it widely. Noticed the clouds while stirring.

Called upon our ancient great aunts nd their long slow eyes

Of summer. Dropped in their names.

Added a mint leaf now and then

To hearten the broth. Added a note of cheer and worry.

Orange butterfly between the claps of thunder?

Perfect. And once we had it,

Had smelled and tasted the fragrant syrup, placing the pan on back burner for keeping,

We boiled down the lies in another pan till disappeared.

We washed that pan.

Criticism

“Her knowledge of history grounds poetry with facts and enables her to present often overlooked perspectives and events”

Criticismof Fuel

(Brad Bostian-Editor for ForPoetry.Com)

“special perception in her attention to detail”

“She is courteous, even ladylike, but equally bold in thought”

“Fuel is too long”

• “watered down by saying too much”

“To Any Would-Be Terrorists”

• Letter Nye wrote to “terrorists” but did not send

• Referring to 9/11

• Suggests that the terrorists should speak to children, grandparents, and worship a non-violent religion in order to change their views on life and Americans

• Overall letter shows how peaceful of a person Nye is

• Total of 30 different types of written works

• Has won a variety of awards

• Award winning works include “Hugging the Jukebox”, Sitti’s Secrets, Habibi, and “19 Varieties of Gazelle”

• Elected to the bored of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets in 2010

Achievements

Now

59 years old

Lives in San Antonio, Texas

Columnist for Organica

Poetry editor for the Texas Observer