Poet Naomi Shihab Nye visits BVNW

Madison Graves, Business Manager

The room is silent, the lights dimmed to cast the spotlight on Poet Naomi Shihab Nye as she reads a poem about a conversation she had with an ex-convict on a bus ride. Nye is a nationally recognized poet and has been nominated for the National Book Award. Through the Johnson County Library, students at BVNW were given the opportunity to listen to her work and her outlook on writing poetry yesterday in the Little Theater.

English teacher Ted Fabiano said the senior AP English Literature classes read Nye’s poetry prior to her visit. He also said he believes students will have a new perspective on her poetry after hearing her speak.

“To me, poetry is such an important component because it really is about connecting to something,” Fabiano said. “It’s something very human that everyone has in common.”

Nye echoed his thoughts, saying that poetry is a way of communication that is both intimate and immediate.

“I think we all are hungry to connect to one another and to one another’s perspective,” Nye said. “I don’t think [poetry] is only a place where we think about our interior lives, but we also discover the world around us through poetry.”

According to senior Annie McLean, the performance was spellbinding.

“[Nye] kind of threw this mental net over the crowd [which] was interwoven with her words and experiences,” McLean said. “She just uses these details that everyone can understand and she puts them into scenarios that are extraordinary somehow.”

During the presentation, Nye explained how she used to document words and phrases said by her son when he was a child in a notebook, and read some of the pieces. This, to McLean, was what she took most from the performance.

“I think it was inspirational that someone so young would think of things in such a different way,” McLean said. “It’s a mind that’s not inhibited by all these societal ideas when they’re just fresh and this blank slate that has these different ideas and sees the world differently.”

Nye said she hopes her presentation encouraged students to develop more confidence in their ability to write and use their talent for writing on a daily basis.

“When you’re writing just on a page for yourself, you are looking at words, thinking with words and finding ways to shape and express a sentence, a thought,” Nye said. “[Writing] will help you no matter what job you do and no matter what path you follow.”