Naomi Shihab Nye

Author profile

born

March 12, 1952 in St. Louis, Missouri, The United States

gender

female

About this author

Naomi Shihab Nye was born to a Palestinian father and an American mother. During her high school years, she lived in Ramallah in Jordan, the Old City in Jerusalem, and San Antonio, Texas, where she later received her B.A. in English and world religions from Trinity University. She is a novelist, poet and songwriter.

She currently lives in San Antonio, Texas. She was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2010.

combine editions
Books by Naomi Shihab Nye

Average rating: 3.92 · 3,398 ratings · 665 reviews · 43 distinct works

	Habibi 3.60 avg rating — 751 ratings — published 1997 — 9 editions	My rating:
	Words Under the Words: Selected Poems 4.45 avg rating — 379 ratings — published 1994 — 2 editions	My rating:
	19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East 3.88 avg rating — 415 ratings — published 2002 — 5 editions	My rating:
	Fuel 4.20 avg rating — 177 ratings — published 1998	My rating:
	Honeybee: Poems & Short Prose 3.95 avg rating — 149 ratings — published 2008 — 4 editions	My rating:
	What Have You Lost? by Naomi Shihab Nye (Selections), Michael Nye (Illustrator) 4.02 avg rating — 134 ratings — published 1999 — 4 editions	My rating:
	Red Suitcase 4.27 avg rating — 115 ratings — published 1994 — 3 editions	My rating:
	A Maze Me: Poems for Girls by Naomi Shihab Nye, Terre Maher (Illustrations) 3.80 avg rating — 105 ratings — published 2005 — 2 editions	My rating:
	I'll Ask You Three Times, Are You OK?: Tales of Driving and Being Driven 3.86 avg rating — 106 ratings — published 2007 — 4 editions	My rating:
	This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from Around the World 4.22 avg rating — 95 ratings — published 1992 — 5 editions	My rating:

More books by Naomi Shihab Nye…

Upcoming Events

No scheduled events. Add an event.

Quotes by Naomi Shihab Nye

“Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing
inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

Colombia”
― Naomi Shihab Nye, Words Under the Words: Selected Poems

tags: kindness

87 people liked it

“I love the solitude of reading. I love the deep dive into someone else's story, the delicious ache of a last page.”
― Naomi Shihab Nye

57 people liked it

“The person you have known a long tme is embedded in you like a jewel. The person you have just met casts out a few glistening beams & you are fascinated to see more of them. How many more are there? With someone you've barely met the curiosity is intoxicating.”
― Naomi Shihab Nye

tags: people , travel

38 people liked it

See all Naomi Shihab Nye's quotes »

Polls

Who is your favorite poet? (add to this list if needed)

Charles Bukowski

40 votes, 14.5%

E. E. Cummings

23 votes, 8.4%

Edgar Allan Poe (write-in)

21 votes, 7.6%

Emily Dickinson

16 votes, 5.8%

Robert Frost (write-in)

15 votes, 5.5%

Sylvia Plath (write-in)

14 votes, 5.1%

Pablo Neruda (write-in)

11 votes, 4.0%

Langston Hughes

8 votes, 2.9%

Mary Oliver

7 votes, 2.5%

Walt Whitman (write-in)

7 votes, 2.5%

Allen Ginsberg

7 votes, 2.5%

william shakespear (write-in)

6 votes, 2.2%

Rumi (write-in)

6 votes, 2.2%

Rainer Maria Rilke (write-in)

5 votes, 1.8%

T.S. Elliot (write-in)

5 votes, 1.8%

William Blake (write-in)

4 votes, 1.5%

Fernando Pessoa (write-in)

4 votes, 1.5%

Dante (write-in)

4 votes, 1.5%

Lord Alfred Tennyson (write-in)

4 votes, 1.5%

D. H. Lawrence (write-in)

4 votes, 1.5%

Dorothy Parker (write-in)

4 votes, 1.5%

John Keats (write-in)

3 votes, 1.1%

Federico García Lorca (write-in)

3 votes, 1.1%

Charles Baudelaire (write-in)

3 votes, 1.1%

anne sexton (write-in)

3 votes, 1.1%

Nikki Giovanni

3 votes, 1.1%

Seamus Heaney (write-in)

2 votes, 0.7%

FERLINGHETTI, Lawrence

2 votes, 0.7%

Hart Crane (write-in)

2 votes, 0.7%

Dylan Thomas (write-in)

2 votes, 0.7%

Andrea Gibson (write-in)

2 votes, 0.7%

John Donne (write-in)

2 votes, 0.7%

Wallace Stevens (write-in)

2 votes, 0.7%

Sherman Alexie

2 votes, 0.7%

Adrienne Rich

2 votes, 0.7%

Ted Hughes (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

Naomi Shihab Nye

1 vote, 0.4%

Stephen Crane (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

Jack Kerouac (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

Ellen Hopkins (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

Lewis Carroll (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

Li Young Lee

1 vote, 0.4%

Geoffrey Chaucer (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

Al Berto (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

Audre Lorde

1 vote, 0.4%

Dmitry Prigov (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

Wisława Szymborska (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

Mark Doty (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

Mario Benedetti (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

Percy Shelley (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

Arthur Rimbaud (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

Suheir Hammad (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

E.E. Cummings (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

Hiroyuki Nishigaki (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

Gwendolyn Brooks (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

Philip Levine (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

Rafał Wojaczek (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

Gérard de Nerval (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

A. Kamalei (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

Marge Piercy (Author)

1 vote, 0.4%

cesar vallejo (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

Alexander Pope (write-in)

1 vote, 0.4%

Stephen Dunn

0 votes, 0.0%

Martin Espada

0 votes, 0.0%

275 total votes

5 comments

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
The Next Best Boo...: OFFICIAL SUMMER CHALLENGE 2009	6757	10112	Aug 31, 2009 10:23pm
Poetry for Children: Recommend a great poetry book for children	13	24	Nov 03, 2009 03:08am
Wild Things: YA G...: Multicultural books about Asia/The Middle East	10	39	Dec 31, 2010 08:47am
Middle East/North...: 2011 Stop (3)- The Levant /sham	54	60	Jun 08, 2011 12:14pm
The Seasonal Read...: * Summer Challenge 2011 Completed Tasks (DO NOT DELETE ANY POSTS)	2655	522	Aug 31, 2011 09:18pm
Salt Lake County ...: 2011 December Reading Challenge	23	52	Jan 04, 2012 01:56pm
The History Book ...: AUTHOR ALPHABET	1102	341	May 24, 2012 03:46am
Around the World ...: Israel and Palestine	15	63	May 31, 2012 09:03am

More…

Is this you? Let us know. If not, help out and invite Naomi to Goodreads.

Naomi's Fans (96)

Naomi Shihab Nye

Author profile

combine editionsBooks by Naomi Shihab Nye

Upcoming Events

Quotes by Naomi Shihab Nye

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

combine editions
Books by Naomi Shihab Nye