{"id":2933,"date":"2019-02-27T00:00:47","date_gmt":"2019-02-27T05:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/mission-and-identity\/?p=2933"},"modified":"2019-09-18T16:44:55","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:44:55","slug":"feb-27-naomi-shihab-nye-famous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2019\/02\/27\/feb-27-naomi-shihab-nye-famous\/","title":{"rendered":"Feb 27 – Naomi Shihab Nye – “Famous”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wednesday,\u00a0 February 27,\u00a0 2019<\/p>\n

“I want to be famous to shuffling men
\nwho smile while crossing streets,\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the deep blessings of writing and posting on the \u201cWork Day\/Hard Time Poetry list\u201d often arrives as a surprise, sent to me by someone from among the 2500+ readers of the list from my university or other places in the world.\u00a0 Such was an email from Mary-Catherine Harrison, Chair of our Department of English last Thursday afternoon.\u00a0\u00a0 A short note with a link to this poem by Naomi Shihab Nye whose poems we\u2019ve posted before.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Here\u2019s the short note.\u00a0 \u201cI hadn\u2019t read this poem by Naomi Shibab Nye, which I found in an article on \u201cThe Good-Enough Life<\/a>\u201d in yesterday\u2019s\u00a0NYTimes<\/em>. I think you will like it (and the article, for that matter).\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mary-Catherine was right,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I like this a lot.\u00a0\u00a0 Bet you will also.\u00a0 \u00a0Mary-Catherine,\u00a0 I owe you again.<\/p>\n

Best to read the poem out loud, with pauses.\u00a0\u00a0 Have a blest day.<\/p>\n

If we get lucky here around our city, it will start snowing again.<\/p>\n

john sj<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Post<\/strong>\u00a0 –\u00a0 \u201cFamous\u201d<\/p>\n

The river is famous to the fish.<\/p>\n

The loud voice is famous to silence,
\nwhich knew it would inherit the earth
\nbefore anybody said so.<\/p>\n

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
\nwatching him from the birdhouse.<\/p>\n

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.<\/p>\n

The idea you carry close to your bosom
\nis famous to your bosom.<\/p>\n

The boot is famous to the earth,
\nmore famous than the dress shoe,
\nwhich is famous only to floors.<\/p>\n

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
\nand not at all famous to the one who is pictured.<\/p>\n

I want to be famous to shuffling men
\nwho smile while crossing streets,
\nsticky children in grocery lines,
\nfamous as the one who smiled back.<\/p>\n

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
\nor a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
\nbut because it never forgot what it could do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Born<\/strong><\/td>\nMarch 12, 1952\u00a0(age\u00a066)
\nSt. Louis, Missouri<\/a>,\u00a0United States<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Occupation<\/strong><\/td>\nPoet<\/a>,\u00a0Songwriter<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Genre<\/strong><\/td>\nPoetry<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Naomi Shihab Nye<\/strong>\u00a0(Arabic:\u00a0\u0646\u0639\u0648\u0645\u064a\u00a0\u0634\u0647\u0627\u0628\u00a0\u0646\u0627\u064a\u200e), (born March 12, 1952) 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 West Bank village of Sinjil was a life-changing experience. Nye was the recipient of the 2014 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children\u2019s Literature.<\/p>\n

p.s.
\nI find two spellings of Naomi Shihab Nye – the other is Naomi Shibab Nye.\u00a0 So far I am not fluent enough to choose a definitive version so I am sticking with the Poetry Foundation and the Wiki article and just above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday,\u00a0 February 27,\u00a0 2019 “I want to be famous to shuffling men who smile while crossing streets,\u201d One of the deep blessings of writing and posting on the \u201cWork Day\/Hard Time Poetry list\u201d often arrives as a surprise, sent to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2933"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2933"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2935,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2933\/revisions\/2935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}