Poet's notepad always handy
Published: Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 6:01 a.m.
BATON ROUGE, La. - Naomi Shihab Nye always keeps on her person a small pad of paper and a sharpened pencil.That habit came in handy when she and her husband, Michael, were robbed on a bus during their South American honeymoon. One of the only things she had left was her paper and pencil. She sat down on a park bench and a poem, "a gift," flowed out of her, Nye said.
The resulting poem, "Kindness," - "Before you know what kindness is you must lose things". it starts - is among the best loved in a much decorated and recognized career as a professional poet.
The poem, which she read recently for students and faculty at Episcopal High gathered in the school's performing arts center, recently gained new currency during the financial downturn, appearing in two books.
"I never thought that poem would be quoted by Bernie Madoff victims," she said, shaking her head.
Nye has published several collections of poetry, winning several honors. She was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2010.
Nye, a personal friend of Episcopal's Head of School Hugh McIntosh, visited Episcopal on her way back home to San Antonio from a reading at Tulane University in New Orleans.
She read for an hour to grades eight to 12, then spent another hour conducting a workshop with the senior class.
In the workshop, Nye said not just "Kindness" but many of her poems come from observations and scraps of dialogue she hears as she goes through life...READ MORE
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