Naomi Shihab Nye

Naomi Shihab Nye’s experience of both cultural difference and different cultures has influenced much of her work. Her writings draw from Eastern, Middle Eastern and Native American religions and are said to resemble the meditative poetry of William Stafford, Wallace Stevens and Gary Snyder. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her father was a Palestinian refugee and her mother an American of German and Swiss descent. She spent her adolescence in both Jerusalem and San Antonio, Texas. Nye is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Ivan Sandrof Award for Lifetime Achievement from the National Book Critics Circle, the Lavan Award, the Paterson Poetry Prize, the Carity Randall Prize, the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award and many Pushcart Prizes. She was the Poetry Foundation’s Young People’s Poet Laureate from 2019 - 2021. To read more about her, visit poets.org/poet/naomi-shihab-nye