La Chiva Negra: Tales of the Black Sheep: There is a glow around Naomi Shihab Nye.

Naomi Shihab Nye spoke to an auditorium of middle school students on November 1^st on the University of Oklahoma campus. I had class all that morning, in fact I had to come in late, but I was determined to be there because I wondered what kind of effect Naomi would have on students of this age.

Habibi is a young adult novel that won her NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature this year. I read the book, and even as someone in her 20’s, the story still had profound things to teach me. Habibi taught me about Palestinian culture. It confirmed my belief that hate is a cultural creation, but one that can be stopped by lowering our walls.

Naomi is most well known for her poetry, and indeed, when she speaks her words are as beautiful as her poems. I wrote down notes from her talk that day because almost everything Naomi said was something I wanted to resonate within me forever. I wanted to cherish being in the audience of this amazing living voice, and I hope sharing it with a larger community will have the same peaceful affect as it has had on my mind.

Words from Naomi Shihab Nye:

“Everybody has material. I had a neighborhood, a library, a school, and a notebook.”

“If you write things down you feel better.”

“Poetry was at the center of the universe [in my 2^nd grade class]. We wrote our own poems in response to them…We can all do that, forever. You’re not [writing] in a vacuum.”

“If I wrote a sentence down in my notebook I felt rich.”

“When something happens that is really tough, there are always new things to learn from it.”

“Always think about what wasn’t included in the story.”

“I thought, ‘Poets only write short things,’ then someone told me to expand Sitti's Secrets , and that’s how I wrote Habibi.”

“I’m a strong believer in revision. They’re giving you a chance to make your story better.”

“I will never read world news the same way again.”

“Human beings make mistakes with one another, but they heal them.”

“We all can belong to more than one place.”

“Rivery ripples of song…”

“Freedom to be fools…”

" A piece from a found poem: I never want to minus you."

“Voices of other writers made me want to go into writing.”

“Our teachers guide us forever.”

“Keep your affairs simple. Just ask yourself, “What am I doing today?”"

“Language blesses us; words are our company.”

“I dislike all walls.”

-A student asked Naomi if she had any advice for aspiring authors and she replied with three things: Read, read read. Get into the habit of keeping a notebook regularly, you’ll never regret this. Find ways to show your work because it’s good to imagine a reader reading it. And of course, go to your library.”

“When I asked my grandmother why she wasn’t bitter, she said, “Humor was my tactic for survival. If I was bitter I might have lost my laugh, and that is the most important thing I have.”

-Another student in the audience asked Naomi if she had any regrets. After a thoughtful pause, Naomi replied, “I have always been slow, but if I could do it all over again I would move even more slowly. I would pay attention to people who are going away.”

Thank you for all the wisdom Naomi.