Naomi Shihab Nye Quotes
Naomi Shihab Nye — American Novelist born on March 12, 1952,
Naomi Shihab Nye is a poet, songwriter, and novelist. She was born to a Palestinian father and an American mother. Although she calls herself a "wandering poet", she refers to San Antonio as her home. She says a visit to her grandmother in the village of Sinjil was a life-changing experience. Nye was the recipient of the 2013 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature... (wikipedia)
My father was very disappointed by war and fighting. And he thought language could help us out of cycles of revenge and animosity. And so, as a journalist, he always found himself asking lots of questions and trying to gather information. He was always very clear to underscore the fact that Jewish people and Arab people were brother and sister.
During the Gulf War, I remember two little third grade girls saying to me - after I read them some poems by writers in Iraq - 'You know, we never thought about there being children in Iraq before.' And I thought, 'Well those poems did their job, because now they'll think about everything a little bit differently.'
