Vox Populi
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Naomi Shihab Nye: Generations
At the end of an unseasonably warm day
New Year’s Eve 2017
I stood in my kitchen holding
one wooden spoon.
My mom was watching TV
in the living room
eating apples, crackers, and cheese.
My grandson slept in a stroller
in a quiet back room.
I was related to both people,
ages ninety and one.
They were peaceful.
And that was it.
The most beautiful moment
of my life.
~~~~
Copyright 2024 Naomi Shihab Nye. From Grace Notes: Poems about Families, (Greenwillow Books, 2024).
Naomi Shihab Nye describes herself as a “wandering poet.” She has spent more than 40 years traveling the country and the world to lead writing workshops and inspiring students of all ages. Nye was born to a Palestinian father and an American mother and grew up in St. Louis, Jerusalem, and San Antonio. Drawing on her Palestinian-American heritage, the cultural diversity of her home in Texas, and her experiences traveling in Asia, Europe, Canada, Mexico, and the Middle East, Nye uses her writing to attest to our shared humanity.
Naomi Shihab Nye is the author and/or editor of more than 30 volumes. Her books of poetry for adults and children include 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East (a finalist for the National Book Award), A Maze Me: Poems for Girls, Red Suitcase, Words Under the Words, Fuel, Transfer, You & Yours (a best-selling poetry book of 2006), Mint Snowball, Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners, Come with Me: Poems for a Journey, Honeybee (awarded the 2008 Arab American Book Award in the Children’s/Young Adult category), The Tiny Journalist (Best Poetry Book from both the Texas Institute of Letters and the Writers League of Texas), Cast Away: Poems for Our Time (one of the Washington Post‘s best children’s books of 2020), and Everything Comes Next: Collected and New Poems. Her new poetry book is Grace Notes: Poems about Families. Kirkus gave it a star and called it “Beautifully written poetry about the butterfly effect of human experience.”
Nye’s collections of essays include Never in a Hurry, and I’ll Ask You Three Times, Are you Okay?. She has edited several poetry anthologies including I Feel a Little Jumpy Around You, Time You Let Me In, This Same Sky, and What Have You Lost?. She also edited an anthology on the COVID-19 pandemic titled Dear Vaccine: Global Voices Speak to the Pandemic. Nye co-edited a book with Marion Winik titled I Know About a Thousand Things; The Writings of Ann Alejandro of Uvalde, Texas.
Nye’s fiction books for young people include Habibi, Going Going, There Is No Long Distance Now, The Turtle of Oman, and its sequel, The Turtle of Michigan. The Turtle of Oman was chosen a Horn Book Best Book of 2014, a 2015 Notable Children’s Book by the American Library Association, and was awarded the 2015 Middle East Book Award for Youth Literature. Her picture books include Baby Radar, Sitti’s Secrets, and Famous.
Naomi Shihab Nye was a Lannan Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Witter Bynner Fellow (Library of Congress). She has also been the recipient of many awards and prizes including a Lavan Award, Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, four Pushcart Prizes, Robert Creeley Prize, NSK Neustadt Award for Children’s Literature, May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award, Lon Tinkle Award for Lifetime Achievement, two Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards, the Ivan Sandrof Award for Lifetime Achievement, the 2024 Texas Writer Award and the 2024 Wallace Stevens Award. In 2021 she was voted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Nye was affiliated with The Michener Center for writers at the University of Texas at Austin for 20 years and was also poetry editor at The Texas Observer for 20 years. In 2019-2020 she was the editor for New York Times Magazine poems. She is Chancellor Emeritus for the Academy of American Poets and is Professor of Creative Writing – Poetry at Texas State University. [from Steven Barclay Agency]
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It’s a ’round’ poem and gave me a feeling of total peace. Thank you, Naomi. “I was related to both people, / ages ninety and one. / They were peaceful. / And that was it. / The most beautiful moment / of my life.” A magical moment to never forget, to savour and nourish, and to feed from when life is anything else than peaceful. Written by a master.
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When I finished this lovely poem, I broke down in tears. There is an undertow I didn’t expect.
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While in prison, I used to smile at the birds passing so carelessly through the chain link or perched atop the barbs of razor wire, their song a reminder that there is a level of the sublime that they can never, ever comprehend, let alone touch. This poem conjured that moment, a moment that, at the time, I tried to capture in a poem, but only succeeded in adding it to the literally hundreds of poems I’d written while incarcerated and beyond, all unpublished. Perhaps it’s those steel convict edges caging the nuance required to write effective verse, but whatever the case, they did bring me, like the unconquerable birds, a modicum of peace. That same steel sometimes peppers my other writing with a similar, blunt force edge, like how easily I used to pass my hands through bars while the rest of me, like the aforementioned nuance, remained imprisoned. So I’m sorry for being so blunt force in my criticism of Palestine, but again, the poetry often escapes me.
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What a poem, Naomi. What a simple, beautiful & deep lesson on how to completely & wholly experience the joy of being able to see, hear, taste, touch, feel– and to live such moments, fully aware of such a simple yet miraculous blessing.
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This is a wonderful way to start the new year, it lands so gently. Thank you Naomi, and thank you, Michael for the tremendous work you do. People like you are helping tip the scales toward love, which is what I think will save us. Wishing you a wonderful new year.
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Tip the scales toward love. Yes.
Thanks, Beth.
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Thank you, Michael. Naomi is one of my favorite poets. I was fortunate to spend some of my happiest moments with her kind tutelage at a zen monastery. What a perfect poem as I spend New Year’s Eve with son’s family.
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Thanks, Barb. You are an important part of VP.
Happy New Year!
m
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How peaceful and tender – may this be the entrance into the new year. Thank you Naomi and Michael.
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Thank YOU!
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Such a beautiful poem, as are all of Naomi Shihab Nye’s poems. “Generations” will help me slide, a little easier, into the new year. [In Germany (instead of “Happy New Year!”) people wish each other “Guten Rutsch” or “Good Slide!”]
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What a powerfully simple, very uplifting poem, perfect for this time of year. In its own subtle way it gives hope.
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Powerfully simple. Yes.
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