海角大神

The world according to Naomi Shihab Nye is all about the quiet moments, all about the small details. Like the small cut on her arm.

The sleeves of her green plaid shirt are rolled up her forearms, revealing the cut, as she speaks to a group of teachers at Humanities Texas 鈥� her voice deep and raspy from decades of speaking in classrooms.

It鈥檚 mid-June and she鈥檚 been away from Texas for a few days. Socks, her cat, did not like it, so when she returned 鈥渁 little cat love鈥� was waiting for her. She鈥檚 driven up from San Antonio with her mother to speak to the teachers. Her thick gray-brown hair is tied into a big ponytail bundled over her left shoulder, making space for her wide brown eyes.

Children and young people 鈥渘eed more exposure to poetry,鈥� she says, not just for when they鈥檙e children, but for when they鈥檙e not. 鈥淗ow does poetry help us live our lives?鈥� she asks. 鈥淗ow can it help us? How can it serve us?鈥澛�

She has made a career writing about small things that can so often go unnoticed. In one poem, a caterpillar inches across the kitchen floor. In one novel, a little girl is 鈥渟tunned into observation鈥� after a car accident. Another poem celebrates the 鈥渜uiet minute between two noisy minutes.鈥�

In a fast-paced world that only seems to be picking up speed, Ms. Shihab Nye 鈥� recently named the young people鈥檚 poet laureate by the Poetry Foundation 鈥� asks that we slow down, stop, and look around. She asks that we travel, be it on a plane or on the page. Making time for that can help people, she thinks, especially children.

This focus on the seemingly minor, mundane details of everyday life 鈥� coming from a woman who has had far from an ordinary life 鈥� forms the soul of both her writing and teaching. Every life is extraordinary, she tells you, and by slowing down to see the details you can see how. To write, you don鈥檛 need a big idea, she often tells classrooms.聽

鈥淵ou don鈥檛 even have to have a little idea. Just look around,鈥� she tells them. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e living in a poem.鈥�

鈥淓very day is filled with poems, it鈥檚 just whether you want to turn your head and look at them, or give them a little time on the page or in your mind,鈥� she says in an interview. 鈥淚 think it helps us to know that.鈥�

Igniting poetic ambition

There isn鈥檛 much that is stereotypically Texan about Naomi Shihab Nye. She wasn鈥檛 born in Texas (though she has that in common with many of the heroes of the Alamo). Before Texas she lived in the St. Louis area and in Jerusalem. Her father was a Palestinian refugee. She is unabashedly liberal, and she doesn鈥檛 eat barbecue (though she likes the smell).

But she loves the spaciousness. She loves the multiculturalism, and she loves the artistic communities. Texas, she says, 鈥渋s the most stereotyped state.鈥� She moved to San Antonio for her last two years of high school and she鈥檚 never left, graduating from Trinity University in the city before becoming one of the most successful writers in the state.

You can鈥檛 be a successful writer in Texas and not have known Bill Wittliff 鈥� the screenwriter, photographer, and author known for adapting Larry McMurtry鈥檚 novel 鈥淟onesome Dove鈥� into a television miniseries 鈥� who had passed away days before the interview. He was 鈥渢his consummate creative being,鈥� she says.

鈥淗ow do we help kids feel that kind of enthusiastic creativity that a person like Bill Wittliff embodied all his life?鈥� she continues. 鈥淗ow do we help kids realize you鈥檙e part of an amazing place and you鈥檙e part of a complicated time? How can poetry help us look at it?鈥�

The laureateship is two years long, and the first she has accepted. She鈥檚 never had much desire to be a laureate, but the focus on young people here appealed to her.聽

Virginia Duncan was a junior editor at Macmillan Publishers in 1989 when she sent Ms. Shihab Nye a letter suggesting she write more poetry for children.

鈥淪he could do anything [with the laureateship], and I鈥檓 really excited to see what she will do,鈥� says Ms. Duncan.

鈥淭here are many, many people who will say Naomi changed their lives because she came into their classroom when they were in third grade and she told this kid that he or she could be a writer,鈥� she adds.聽

John Phillip Santos is one of them. He had just started at Churchill High School in San Antonio when Ms. Shihab Nye, just graduated from Trinity University, rolled into his class as a visiting teacher. They had been reading the American classics 鈥� 鈥淢oby Dick鈥� by Herman Melville, Walt Whitman鈥檚 poetry. She brought in Joni Mitchell鈥檚 Blue album.

鈥淪he always had not only a sense of how to invite the spark of poetic ambition in young people, but was willing to work to make that real,鈥� says Mr. Santos, now an author and mentor at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Over the years they became friends and 鈥減oetic allies,鈥� he says. Not only did she encourage him to pursue poetry and writing as a career, he adds, but she showed him it was possible to do so while writing about his own Chicano culture and experiences.

鈥淲e were at the margins of the social order as well as the margins of the geographical world, but Naomi鈥檚 poetry always put us at the center of everything,鈥� he says.

鈥淎nd through it all she鈥檚 been able to be an amazingly prolific poet, and someone who鈥檚 work has only gotten deeper and more intense,鈥� he adds. 鈥淪he has never lost that sense of wonder and possibility about poetry as a force for change.鈥�

鈥淢aking that bridge鈥�

As a kid, Ms. Shihab Nye 鈥渇elt like a grown-up,鈥� and she saw a lot that she wanted to change.

When she was first learning about poetry 鈥� her mother reading her Emily Dickinson before bed 鈥� she was also often thinking about the stark racial segregation that surrounded her in Ferguson, Missouri, in the 1950s.

Her father, Aziz, was the only Arab in Ferguson. A Palestinian refugee who grew up in pre-war Jerusalem surrounded by Jews, 海角大神s, Muslims, Armenian Turks, and more, he forecast how racial tension in the St. Louis suburb would explode decades later to fuel the Black Lives Matter movement.

鈥淵ou can鈥檛 do this, this division,鈥� he would tell her. 鈥淪omeday this place is going to blow up.鈥澛�

Politics, justice, and identity are recurring themes in her work, and she doesn鈥檛 shy away from politics in conversation either. Avoiding politics only hardens divisions, she says, and poetry can help break down some of those divisions.

聽鈥淚f you鈥檙e a person living in a city and you read a rural book that moves you, you just got bigger,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 one of the biggest jobs of literature, making that bridge and inviting people to cross it.鈥�

The kid who felt like a grown-up has changed into a grown-up who feels like a kid, she says.聽She鈥檚 still figuring out what she would like to do during the two year laureateship, but it will surely invite children to cross those bridges. She wants to visit schools in rural areas, and to hold programs that bring Arab- and Jewish-American children together. She wants to continue what she鈥檚 been doing for decades in children鈥檚 classrooms, like exposing them to foreign poetry and music they may not have thought of as poetry. She wants to do something in Ferguson.

The Palestinian-American Texan knows full well the benefits of opening yourself up to new cultures and perspectives. Moving to San Antonio, a majority Hispanic city, 鈥渕ade me really think about the preciousness of mixed cultures in this nation,鈥� she says. In today鈥檚 political moment, with President Donald Trump鈥檚 stoking fear of immigrants in particular, living in a city like San Antonio is 鈥渉elpful to our souls.鈥�

鈥淚t鈥檚 easy to turn an eye away from the people who don鈥檛 match us and try to find just the ones who do,鈥� she says. 鈥淏ut when you do that I think you鈥檙e destined, in true America, for heartbreak and loneliness.鈥澛�

鈥淚 think as we grow we become honorary citizens ... of so many cultures that aren鈥檛 our own,鈥� she adds. 鈥淭o be part of other people鈥檚 cultures, it鈥檚 like our birthright as Americans.鈥�