Poetry Unit

We are beginning a unit of reading poetry with the poet Naomi Shihab Nye.

Here is some biographical information about her from the Academy of American Poets:

"Naomi Shihab Nye was born on March 12, 1952, in St. Louis, Missouri, to a Palestinian father and an American mother. During her high school years, she lived in Ramallah in Palestine, the Old City in Jerusalem, and San Antonio, Texas" 

(www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/naomi-shihab-nye)

She writes a lot about family, nature, and humanity. Like most poets, she tries to create a new way of seeing the world, and she explores complex meanings while painting a simple picture with words. Here is a video of Nye reading a poem written from a child's perspective of the world:

And, finally, here is another poem that represent's a child's view of nature and humanity (from www.poetryfoundation.org):

Boy and Egg

BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

Every few minutes, he wants

to march the trail of flattened rye grass

back to the house of muttering

hens. He too could make

a bed in hay. Yesterday the egg so fresh

it felt hot in his hand and he pressed it

to his ear while the other children

laughed and ran with a ball, leaving him,

so little yet, too forgetful in games,

ready to cry if the ball brushed him,

riveted to the secret of birds

caught up inside his fist,

not ready to give it over

to the refrigerator

or the rest of the day.

Reprinted from Fuel, published by BOA Editions by permission of the author. Copyright © 1998 by Naomi Shihab Nye, whose most recent book is A Maze Me, Harper Collins/Greenwillow, 2004.

Source: Fuel (BOA Editions Ltd., 1998)