In Person: Naomi Shihab Nye

Bookpeople

When I think of Naomi Shihab Nye, the first adjective that comes to mind is "gracious" -- as in, unfailingly gracious. Although she continues to build on her ever-mountainous volume of work, she has been regularly involved with editing anthologies she believes need to be out there. For her, there's also a freedom in promoting anthologies; where she feels conflicted in being aggressive about her own work, she says with an anthology, it's easy to say "you really need to get this book" without hesitation.

That was the point of her latest Austin visit, a Book People stop for her latest editing project, The Tree Is Older Than You Are. Clearly, Nye has a lot of fans -- readings were squeezed in between signing sessions for a snaking line of fans, friends, and well-wishers. Although her readings were short, they were sweet, smooth, and inclusive.

Nye focused on the latest book, a collection of poems from Mexican authors printed in both Spanish and English. She handed the reins to Liliana Valenzuela, the Spanish-speaking reader accompanying her, asking her to "pick the ones you like." Nye interspersed her choices, especially a droll piece on motherhood and a piece about a campfire in the mountains (making up the red, white, and green of the Mexican flag), with tales of their origins and histories of their authors. Including Valenzuela was a wise choice -- her Spanish readings were beautiful and allowed the audience a sense of how the poems were originally conceived.

Nye also read from her most recent published collection, Red Suitcase. Her "Nails in the Attic" is a masterful example of how Nye finds the universal in the everyday, and her surprising "Escape" serves as a reminder of the dangers in getting what we want. When she received a personal encore request for "The Travelling Onion," she not only told an entertaining anecdote about its origins but neatly turned the onion into a metaphor for the hard work and relative invisibility of the translators who helped in her latest project. Nye was, as always, a class act. -- Phil West