Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July 2008, pages 53-54

Arab-American Activism

Naomi Shihab Nye at Busboys

ARAB-AMERICAN poet and writer Naomi Shihab Nye participated in a March 21 poetry reading for children at Busboys and Poets Bookstore in Washington, DC. Her appearance was part of this year’s Split This Rock Poetry Festival, the goals of which are “To celebrate the poetry of witness and provocation being written, published, and performed in the United States today,” and “To call poets to a greater role in public life and to equip them with the tools they need to be effective advocates in their communities and in the nation.”

Nye is obviously proud of her heritage and of her late father, journalist Aziz Shihab, who was born in Palestine (see p. 70 for a review of his book Does the Land Remember Me?). She told the children and the many adults in the audience that her grandmother lived in Jerusalem, which for her, as a child, was a far-away place. She further brought home her point by reading from her children’s book, Sitti’s Secrets (available from the AET Book Club). Nye recalled that when she was a child her father would tell her to go to sleep so her grandmother could get up: “My Grandmother lives on the other side of the earth. When I have daylight, she has night. When our sky grows dark, the sun is peeking through her window and brushing the bright lemons on her lemon trees. I think about this when I am going to sleep. ”˜Your turn!’ I say.”

All of us can be connected through poetry and words, Nye emphasized, adding that she was in contact with a woman in Iraq who has a blog entitled “Sunshine blog Iraq.” Nye said she was so inspired by the Iraqi woman’s words that she wrote a poem about her, which she then read to her listeners. When Nye asked if anyone in the crowd had a pen pal in Iraq, one woman raised her hand. The author and poet encouraged the kids in the audience to reach out and try to make contact with Iraqi kids.

“When we are little, we are all poets,” she noted, adding that her son was a wonderful poet when he was small. Once while the two were using a computer he told her, “Today is faded, tomorrow is boldface.” Nye also told a story about the time her son wanted sugar-coated cereal 15 minutes before dinner. When she refused, he made a large sign which said, “Love has failed.” Nye laughed so hard, she said, she let him have a bowl of cereal before dinner.

Before she left the bookstore, Nye urged the children to write down their thoughts and to always stay curious.

For more information about the annual poetry festival visit <www.SplitThisRock.org>.

—Jamal Najjab