Today is the 70th birthday of Naomi Shihab Nye, one of the poets I read.
She and her husband, the photographer Michael Nye, live in the Prince William District. I read about them but have never met them.
One of the reasons I like her poetry is that it has a way of dipping a toe into more than one culture. It’s one of the reasons I live in the Southwest. It’s a place that requires you to look at a topic from more than one perspective.
There’s that. And then there’s her poem “Lives of the Women Poets,” which includes a series of lines that belittle, dismiss and misunderstand. Some are just inane.
Essentially she is not very well-remembered. …
It deserves at least a second look. …
Her most famous love conquest was George Bernard Shaw …
By the time you finish the poem you want to know all the women poets by heart.
My favorite poems are about the little rituals of everyday life.
“Burning the Old Year” feels like a ritual to me — the practice of burning the old letters, notes and lists from the past year. The burning papers
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.
The poet reflects on how little of one year endures to the next.
So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.
When the fire dies out, only the things that didn’t get done still burn.
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