Naomi Shihab-Nye in Person

Today Naomi Shihab-Nye came to talk to our classes and she was MARVELOUS!

First of all, she wasn't the person I expected which says something, I think, about expectations. I thought she would be ethereal somehow, or maybe abstract - airy. I don't know. But I can describe the reality of her through my experience.

Fougs and I had been a bit stressed about the visit just because we wanted it to be perfect. We spent weeks researching and learning. We prepped the kids for the visit and had them color mark her poems. We asked them to think about who she might be as a person based on all of the introductions and jacket covers in/on her books. We wanted them to come up with three questions each based on this information in case an awkward silence descended upon the classroom. We studied and stressed and wondered and thought for days, and finally today came.

Thanks to our amazing librarian, MJ O' Beane (pseudonym of destruction!), we had an amazing lunch with Naomi Nye around a small round table in our tiny, beach muraled (thanks to an ambitious art department) B-hall lounge. Here is where I realized that all of the prep work we had done was in vain (as in vanity). Naomi Nye is one of the most friendly, talkative, easy-going people I have ever met.

We knew that Naomi liked food - she uses figs and melons and Palestinian cookies as imagery in her poems - but we did not know to what extent. Food for her is a sharing; it is an experience that brings us together using all of our senses. As we passed bowls of delicious, fragrant food around the table, we realized that we were not only enjoying a nice meal together, but we literally tasted the true meaning of communion. We were having family time and sharing with a complete stranger, who wasn't a stranger after all because she is a person and we are people. We are we.

Naomi told us that her dad says that if more people would share meals together, we wouldn't have any wars, which is a similar message, my mom says, to that of a country song about sitting together on the front porch...

Anyway, at lunch I discovered that I shouldn't have stressed, and that there wouldn't be an awkward moment because, unlike me, Naomi Nye is completely comfortable and confident in her own skin. In fact, she is so self-aware that no one notices anything other than the beauty of who she is: a dear, hilarious, out-going, spirited individual who is supremely aware of people's need for human connection - for pointing out the loveliness in them, and for praising their individual and collective voices.

She spoke very eloquently to the kids who sincerely absorbed her wisdom. She taught them about writing, about poetry, and about her life as a Palestinian Texan. She encouraged them to use all of their voices (we don't have just one) in their writing. She gave them mini writing assignments, had them share what they penned, and applauded them for creating something beautiful.

Naomi addressed the fact that one should not analyze poetry like one might analyze the polyester/cotton blend of a shirt, but that instead they should allow poetry to say something to them, to give them a reason to look at the world a little bit differently, and to share that experience in their own forms. Then she read some of her favorite poems from other writers and we breathed them in and let them become a part of us, as well.

She talked about the "miracle" of blogs and how people are reaching out across oceans with them. She especially likes Riverbend's blog called "Baghdad Burning" and Sunshine's, "Days of My Life".

She wanted us to remember that good writing isn't about something of the air. It is grounded and relatable, recognizable and beautiful like the “duende”; it is beautiful even if the subject is uncomfortable, ugly, funny, or disturbing. Poetry is community.

Naomi was so brilliant that though the bell rang for school to let out, several of the kids waited to actually shake her hand and tell her what an honor it was to meet her. She gave them her email address. She took pictures with them, and told them that they are beautiful.

And they are.