A Live, Virtual Program Celebrating National Poetry Month in Partnership with The Poets Corner
Wednesday, April 20, 2022, 7-8:30 p.m. U.S./EST
"Living through strange times" has become a ubiquitous phrase. Are there simple ways we might benefit from a more poetry-filled life? Poetry is not something we learn and master, it's a continual process of discovery—a means of stitching together the many threads of life. We find our own ways, but hope this evening will provide a boost of encouragement for all, no matter how much time we have spent with poetry in the past. In this online gathering, Naomi Shihab Nye will share her poems and practices and offer a Q&A for participants. The program’s title derives from Nye’s 2020 collection of her most beloved and new poems from the past 40 years, Everything Comes Next, and gleans from the final line of her poem, “Jerusalem.”
The program celebrates National Poetry Month and is co-sponsored by The Poets Corner in Maine, an organization started in 2020 by Meg Weston and Kathrin Seitz to foster community among writers and readers by providing readings and other offerings. The annual celebration was launched more than 25 years ago by the Academy of American Poets. Since then, it has grown to become the world’s largest literary celebration, reminding us that poetry matters and that poets have an integral role to play in society and culture.
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. Click here to read more about her.