Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Overview

“Nye once again deftly charts the world through verse.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“A beautifully constructed, thoughtful, and inspiring collection.”—School Library Journal (starred review)

Young People’s Poet Laureate and National Book Award Finalist Naomi Shihab Nye’s uncommon and unforgettable voice offers readers peace, humor, inspiration, and solace. This volume of almost one hundred original poems is a stunning and engaging tribute to the diverse voices past and present that comfort us, compel us, lead us, and give us hope.

“I think the air is full of voices. If we slow down and practice listening, we hear those voices better. They live on in us. Inspiration? We need it every day. We deserve it. It is essential, like food, water, clean air, shelter. Here are some poems celebrating the voices that have changed my life and continue to do so.”—Naomi Shihab Nye, Award-winning poet and author

Voices in the Air is a collection of almost one hundred original poems written by the award-winning poet Naomi Shihab Nye in honor of the artists, writers, poets, historical figures, ordinary people, and diverse luminaries from past and present who inspire her and us. Full of words of encouragement, solace, and hope, this collection offers a message of peace and empathy.

Voices in the Air focuses on the inspirational people who strengthen and motivate us to create, to open our hearts, and to live rewarding and graceful lives. With short informational bios about the influential figures behind each poem, and a transcendent introduction by the poet, this is a collection to cherish, read again and again, and share with others.

Featuring black-and-white spot art throughout, as well as brief bios of the “voices,” an index, and an introduction by the author.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062691859
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/15/2022
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	360,505
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Naomi Shihab Nye was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her father was a Palestinian refugee and her mother an American of German and Swiss descent, and she spent her adolescence in both Jerusalem and San Antonio, Texas. She earned her BA from Trinity University in San Antonio. Naomi Shihab Nye describes herself as a “wandering poet.” She has spent more than forty years traveling the country and the world, leading writing workshops and inspiring students of all ages.

Naomi Shihab Nye is the author and/or editor of more than thirty books. Her books of poetry for adults and young people include 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East (a finalist for the National Book Award); A Maze Me: Poems for Girls; Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners; Honeybee (winner of the Arab American Book Award); Cast Away: Poems of Our Time (one of the Washington Post’s best books of 2020); Come with Me: Poems for a Journey; and Everything Comes Next: Collected and New Poems. Her other volumes of poetry include Red Suitcase; Words Under the Words; Fuel; Transfer; You & Yours; Mint Snowball; and The Tiny Journalist. Her collections of essays include Never in a Hurry and I’ll Ask You Three Times, Are You Okay?: Tales of Driving and Being Driven.

Naomi Shihab Nye has edited nine acclaimed poetry anthologies, including This Same Sky: Poems from Around the World; The Space Between Our Footsteps: Poems from the Middle East; Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25; and What Have You Lost? Her picture books include Sitti’s Secrets, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter, and her acclaimed fiction includes Habibi; The Turtle of Oman (winner of the Middle East Book Award) and its sequel, The Turtle of Michigan (honorable mention for the Arab American Book Award).

Naomi Shihab Nye has been a Lannan Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Witter Bynner Fellow (Library of Congress). She has received a Lavan Award from the Academy of American Poets, the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, the Paterson Poetry Prize, four Pushcart Prizes, the Robert Creeley Award, and "The Betty," from Poets House, for service to poetry, and numerous honors for her children’s literature, including two Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards. In 2011 Nye won the Golden Rose Award given by the New England Poetry Club, the oldest poetry-reading series in the country. Her work has been presented on National Public Radio on A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer’s Almanac. She has been featured on two PBS poetry specials, including The Language of Life with Bill Moyers, and she also appeared on NOW with Bill Moyers. She has been affiliated with the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin for twenty years and served as poetry editor at the Texas Observer for twenty years. In 2019–20 she was the poetry editor for the New York Times Magazine. She is Chancellor Emeritus for the Academy of American Poets and laureate of the 2013 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature, and in 2017 the American Library Association presented Naomi Shihab Nye with the 2018 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award. In 2018 the Texas Institute of Letters named her the winner of the Lon Tinkle Award for Lifetime Achievement. She was named the 2019–21 Young People's Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. In 2020 she was awarded the Ivan Sandrof Award for Lifetime Achievement by the National Book Critics Circle. In 2021 she was voted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Naomi Shihab Nye is professor of creative writing-poetry at Texas State University.

Table of Contents

Introduction xi

Section 1 Messages

To Manage 1

Aurora Borealis 2

Propriety 4

Big Bend National Park Says No to All Walls 5

Time's Low Note 7

Bully 9

Invocation 11

Bamboo Mind 12

Cross the Sea 13

To Babies 15

Songbook 16

Unsung-on Finding 17

Bundle 18

Little Lady, Little Nugget Brooms 20

Welcome What Comes 22

What Happens Next 24

Everything Changes the World 26

Standing Back 27

Three Hundred Goats 28

Lost People 29

Broken 31

Twilight 32

Section II Voices in the Air

For Aziz 37

Sheep by the Sea, a painting by Rosa Bonheur (1865) 39

Emily 40

Warbler Woods 41

Gratitude Pillow 43

Life Loves 45

Getting Over It 47

Conversation with Grace Paley, Flight of the Mind Writing Workshop, Oregon 50

Showing Up 51

For Caroline M. 53

Tomorrow 56

After Listening to Paul Durcan, Ireland 59

We Will Get Lost in You 61

James Tate in Jerusalem 63

Train Across Texas 65

Longfellow's Bed 67

Walt Whitman's Revisions 68

"Rest and Be Kind, You Don't Have to Prove Anything" 70

Peace Pilgrim's Pocket 74

C. D. Stepped Out 76

True Success 78

Woven by Air, Texture of Air 80

Tell Us All the Gossip You Know 81

Every Day 88

One State 90

My Name Is … 91

Invitation to the NSA 93

Double Peace 94

Break the Worry Cocoon 96

The Tent 98

Please Sit Down 100

For the Birds 102

Bowing Candles 103

Black Car 105

Section III More Worlds

Mountains 109

Oh, Say Can You See 111

Anti-Inaugural 113

I Vote for You 116

Belfast 118

Summer 120

A Lonely Cup of Coffee 121

Reading Obituaries on the Day of the Giant Moon 122

To Jamyla Bolden of Ferguson, Missouri 124

Your Answering Machine, After Your Death 126

Ring 127

Hummingbird 129

Next Time Ask More Questions 131

In Transit 132

Zen Boy 133

Where Do Poets Find Images? 134

Cell Phone Tower Disguised as a Tree 136

Before I Was a Gazan 138

Morning Ablution 139

What Do Palestinians Want? 140

Arabs in Finland 142

Ladders in Repose 143

The Gift 144

Voodoo Spoons 145

Barbershop 147

Getaway Car, United States, 2017 149

"Little Brother Shot Playing with Pistol" 151

Moment of Relief 152

Unbelievable Things 153

Airport Life 160

Texas, Out Driving 162

Missing the Boat, Take Two 163

All We Will Not Know 164

Loving Working 165

Stars Over Big Bend 166

United 167

Reserved for Poets 169

Her Father Still Watching 170

Small Basket of Happiness 171

Biographical Notes 173

Index of First Lines 187

Acknowledgments

Editorial Reviews

A rich collection of poems celebrating diverse lives. ...Asking tough questions and demonstrating the beauty of the voices on the fringe, Nye once again deftly charts the world through verse: not to be missed.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Nye frames the collection ever so clearly, first with the title, second with the subtitle, and third with her masterly written introduction. Her intentionality is palpable but never contrived. ...A beautifully constructed, thoughtful, and inspiring collection...A vital addition to poetry collections.” — School Library Journal (starred review)

“With her trademark conversational style, [Nye] feels like the sister you wish you had: warm, curious and insightful. ...The poems in this collection are suffused with humor and thoughtfulness...Teen readers will love the gentle intensity of Nye’s words and messages and the accessibility of her poetry. Beautiful.”   — Shelf Awareness (starred review)

“Inspired and guided by the voices that surround her...Nye’s free verse tells of the wisdom, solace and beauty she has found and urges readers to join her...Nye displays a palpable, unwavering empathy and hope for a better world.” — New York Times Book Review

“Nye delivers graceful dedications and intimate recollections, playful musings and sharp rebukes. ...there’s no doubt that Nye’s nimble, clear-eyed, and quietly political poems—supplemented by meticulous biographical notes—may make an avid listener out of anyone.” — ALA Booklist

“[Nye] honors new world freedoms and old world traditions and celebrates youth without discounting childhood’s haphazard impulsiveness. ...Nye’s thought-provoking and timely collection will serve as a gentle invitation to use poems as tools for making sense of a world in crisis and explaining the strangeness of everyday lives.” — Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)

“Taken in sequence, the poems lead the reader through a natural and profound emotional progression. As much as the poems function as windows into their subjects, together they offer a sort of self-portrait of the poet herself, painted in negative space.” — The Horn Book

“’Can we go outside and listen?’ Naomi Nye ponders in her introduction. Or stay in. Reflect. Pay. Attention. If we do we’ll find there is no such things as a too-small moment or memory. ...Nye is, above all, a poet of hope and heartening. ...Thank you, Naomi.” — Cooperative Children’s Book Center

“The poems are moving when read aloud, but Nye is also asking readers to take part in a more profound and subtle type of listening, a kind that cuts through the noise and hears what matters.” — Publishers Weekly

“Like happiness itself, Nye’s poems steal up on us and take us by surprise. This collection, especially, encourages listening: to nature, to other voices, and to the whispers of our own hearts. ...Brimming with affection, wit and optimism, these are poems we truly need right now. A+” — Cleveland Plain Dealer

From the Publisher

Nye delivers graceful dedications and intimate recollections, playful musings and sharp rebukes. ...there’s no doubt that Nye’s nimble, clear-eyed, and quietly political poems—supplemented by meticulous biographical notes—may make an avid listener out of anyone.

ALA Booklist

While Nye's message is clear, it is never heavy-handed. The poems are loosely connected but just as powerful individually. Whether dealing with the mundane (a coffee cup) or the devastating (a girl shot by a stray bullet), Nye displays a palpable, unwavering empathy and hope for a better world. Although it's intended for teenagers, Voices in the Air speaks to adults, too—any, that is, who are willing to slow down and listen.

The New York Times Book Review - Julie Fogliano

03/12/2018
"People do not pass away./ They die/ and then they stay," declares Nye's brief poem "Voices in the Air," the titular work in her collection of 95 poems. The meaning of the collection's subtitle is twofold: the poems are moving when read aloud, but Nye is also asking readers to take part in a more profound and subtle type of listening, a kind that cuts through the noise and hears what matters. Each poem is inspired by an individual's life or words, including poet Henry David Thoreau; political activist, writer, and teacher Grace Paley; and Caroline Mueller, an organic farmer from Ferguson, Mo. Valuable short biographies of each figure are included in the collection's back matter, which allows for a better understanding of Nye's references. Some poems directly address individuals. In "Train Across Texas" (dedicated to Langston Hughes), she writes: "Langston, what did Texas look like back then." Other allusions are far less clear, left like trails of clues for readers to follow. Despite being divided into three loosely themed sections, Nye's collection invites readers to freely meander through the pages in order to experience each poem on its own terms. Ages 13-up. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

Like happiness itself, Nye’s poems steal up on us and take us by surprise. This collection, especially, encourages listening: to nature, to other voices, and to the whispers of our own hearts. ...Brimming with affection, wit and optimism, these are poems we truly need right now. A+

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Inspired and guided by the voices that surround her...Nye’s free verse tells of the wisdom, solace and beauty she has found and urges readers to join her...Nye displays a palpable, unwavering empathy and hope for a better world.

New York Times Book Review

’Can we go outside and listen?’ Naomi Nye ponders in her introduction. Or stay in. Reflect. Pay. Attention. If we do we’ll find there is no such things as a too-small moment or memory. ...Nye is, above all, a poet of hope and heartening. ...Thank you, Naomi.

Cooperative Children’s Book Center

With her trademark conversational style, [Nye] feels like the sister you wish you had: warm, curious and insightful. ...The poems in this collection are suffused with humor and thoughtfulness...Teen readers will love the gentle intensity of Nye’s words and messages and the accessibility of her poetry. Beautiful.”  

Shelf Awareness (starred review)

Taken in sequence, the poems lead the reader through a natural and profound emotional progression. As much as the poems function as windows into their subjects, together they offer a sort of self-portrait of the poet herself, painted in negative space.

The Horn Book

[Nye] honors new world freedoms and old world traditions and celebrates youth without discounting childhood’s haphazard impulsiveness. ...Nye’s thought-provoking and timely collection will serve as a gentle invitation to use poems as tools for making sense of a world in crisis and explaining the strangeness of everyday lives.

Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)

The poems in this collection are suffused with humor and thoughtfulness. ...Teen readers will love the gentle intensity of Nye’s words and messages and the accessibility of her poetry. Beautiful.

Shelf Awareness

★ 2017-10-28
A rich collection of poems celebrating diverse lives.Poet and National Book Award finalist Nye (19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, 2005, etc.) here showcases a variety of largely contemporary vantage points. In the prose introduction to this collection of over 90 free-verse poems, Nye invites teen readers to take a break from the lure of digital devices, asking, "With so much vying for our attention, how do we listen better?" and gently reminding all that "quiet inspiration may be as necessary as food, water, and shelter." Inspiration for Nye here often comes from the crossing of cultures and results from the consummate attention she pays to the slightest of natural phenomena ("never say no to peonies") alongside such grave societal ills as the displacement or disenfranchisement of whole peoples, whether happening in Gaza, Baghdad, or Ferguson. Using thoughts from a number of famous literary and historical figures as springboards, Nye presents political issues with ease, seeking always to "translate us / all into a better world," as when she movingly describes the plight of the refugee in "Arabs in Finland": "What they left to be here, / in the cold country, / where winter lasts forever, / haunts them in the dark."Asking tough questions and demonstrating the beauty of the voices on the fringe, Nye once again deftly charts the world through verse: not to be missed. (biographical notes) (Poetry. 13-17)

Kirkus Reviews