A poem by award winning poet Naomi Shihab Nye from her newest book (2026)
SIDEKICK
Grief Tsunami
Thinking
how Palestinians
would have stopped everything
to feed you.
Sidekick
Written by internationally beloved poet Naomi Shihab Nye, Sidekick stands as a testament to poetry’s enduring power to bear witness. With each poem, Nye affirms a truth that feels more urgent than ever: every human being deserves safety, dignity, and peace.
Drawing on her family’s deep roots in Palestine, Nye writes with both abiding love and immeasurable heartbreak, offering intimate reflections that illuminate the human cost of conflict. Long a champion of dialogue across borders and divides, she crafts poems that are direct, conversational, and unafraid to confront the systems and structures that perpetuate harm.
Through her signature blend of candor, lyrical grace, and careful attention to everyday lives, Nye offers a collection that urges readers to look more closely, feel more deeply, and imagine a world in which we refuse to turn away from one another. https://boaeditions.org/book/sidekick/