Photos by Deb Cram.
Poet Naomi Shihab Nye held an audience of 350 spellbound with her talk and reading on May 5 at the Palace Theatre in Manchester. Shihab Nye’s visit was coodinated by Terry Farish, Director of the Humanities Council’s Connections adult literacy program. In addition to the public event at the Palace, Shihab Nye met privately with a group of Connections students and teachers (see story below).
Nye spoke about the power of the written word to build connections between people and to the world around us. She read from her own poems and essays and shared favorite poems by other authors. Click here to view excerpts from Shihab Nye’s talk.
Shihab Nye is the author and/or editor of more than 25 volumes. Her books of poetry include 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, and You & Yours, a best-selling poetry book of 2006. Other works include seven prize-winning poetry anthologies for young readers.
Funding for An Evening with Naomi Shihab Nye was provided in part by the Harry Winebaum Readers’ Endowment Fund of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. Additional support was provided by Devine Millimet and the Palace Theatre.
Connections programs are made possible by the generous support of: the Norwin S. and Elizabeth N. Bean Foundation; the Bishop’s Charitable Assistance Fund; Granite State Reads at the NH State Library’s Center for the Book; Lincoln Financial Foundation; Merrimack County Savings Bank; Ocean Bank, a division of People’s United Bank; and TransCanada.
by Terry Farish, Connections Program Coordinator
Irma, from Mexico, wanted to ask Naomi Shihab Nye what she thought about being the daughter of an immigrant. Do you think it is a good experience for the children? She was thinking about her own daughter and if she had done the right thing for her. Irma and her classmates in Chris Powers’ ESOL class at Manchester Adult Ed worried about the question for the visitor who was about to come. Was it too personal? Would it offend her?
Naomi was visiting their class after the NH Humanities Council’s “Evening With Naomi Shihab Nye” at Manchester’s Palace Theatre the night before (see story above). They had been reading the poet’s books with Connections book club discussion leader Maren Tirabassi, and student leaders over several classes. They’d read the novel Habibi and poems including “Red Brocade” in 19 Varieties of Gazelle.
When Naomi walked in, the class became silent. She was unpretentious in black slacks and a black jacket and her dark, straight hair pulled in a low pony tail over her right shoulder. The students wanted to show respect so first they invited her to eat the food they’d cooked for the occasion. They ate baklava and fresh fruits and chocolate cupcakes.
Safeta from Bosnia welcomed Naomi for the class. Before asking questions, Safeta said, they would introduce themselves. One by one, each of the 25 students and teachers stood, said their name, and told a small story.
“To become a poet is my dream,” said Jing. “And you will,” Naomi said. “I can tell, by your face. You are a poet!”
“I am Fu,” another student began. “When I come here, I feel is so very uncomfortable.” Naomi listened and praised her courage.
Valery from Haiti, Karen White, principal of Manchester Technical School, each told a wish or a passion.
Stories filled the room and Naomi took out a photo of her grandmother, placed it on the table in front of her, and her grandmother seemed to join the class.
“We’re trying to find a direction in our poems,” Dargee, who is from Tibet, said. He talked about a poem as something that expressed feelings. “A poem is about what is inside."
Naomi said, “Yes, but also about what is outside, and the poet lets the reader have the feelings.”
Carlos, who is from Colombia and was one of the class leaders, asked why she became a writer.
“If I had a book, I was rich,” Naomi said. “If I had words on a page, I was rich. I wanted to be rich with language.”
Habibi means my darling in Arabic and Darje wondered why she called the book My Darling. “Sometimes I don’t understand the meaning in a book.” Naomi explained, “I wanted the title to express the idea of being close. I wanted the feeling of affection.” She said Habibi, a novel about an American teenager who moves with her family to Palestine, her father’s homeland, was her best selling book.
Chris asked about keeping a notebook. “Yes!” Naomi said. She pulled out a notebook in which she jots notes. It was tiny and fit in her palm. She explained you don’t need a whole day to write. You don’t need a week. All you need is “seven splendid minutes.” She encouraged everyone to give themselves those minutes for their own words.
Irma decided to ask her question. “You, as the daughter of an immigrant, do you think it is a positive experience for the children?”
“Yes,” Naomi says, “I think it is a great experience. Because I have more than one home. It was the most important thing in my life that my father was an immigrant. The world is a big place. I strangely feel at home everywhere.”
Naomi said she would read her poem, “My Grandmother and the Stars.” The students asked Carlos, “What page?” They wanted to see the words.
“Page 69,” he told them. All the students turned to the page in 19 Varieties of Gazelle, and followed the words in English as Naomi read:
Where we live in the world is never one place.
Our hearts,
those dogged mirrors,
keep flashing us
moons before we are ready for them.
You and I on a roof at sunset,
our two languages adrift,
heart saying, take this home with you,
never again,
and only memory making us rich.
Naomi told the class, “Words make us rich. Words and books, they are our connections to memory. “And place makes us rich. You already own more than one place. You are rich with place.”
They are learning to be teachers …
and I ask them,
Who was a teacher in your life?
Carlos from Colombia remembers the sisters
and their rulers on his palms …
we learned the alphabet by blood.
We were wild children – it was very effective.
Amelia speaks – my professor of Mexican history
and philosophy, his name was Toltec or Aztec.
I loved philosophy, also I loved him – I was seventeen
he was in his forties and unmarried.
Darje from Tibet, raised in India,
honors all the teachers … who encouraged us.
They taught us exiled children
and we even learned poetry and metaphor.
Teacher said, “when I say ‘mountain,’
it is our secret – I mean ‘Tibet’.”
Irma is also from Mexico.
Her mother kept her very close,
protected at home, with no kindergarten.
When she finally went to first grade,
so afraid, so homesick,
Gumba was a teacher like a second mother.
Home, school – I had two mothers,
and I learned.
Finally, Safeta from Bosnia names
a middle school teacher … who pushed and pushed
when I did not like books,
who challenged and challenged,
when I was too easily satisfied.
Safeta became a girl
who fell in love with the library, a woman
who crossed the ocean.
Maren C. Tirabassi, poet and Connections facilitator
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Hear Naomi Shihab Nye's interview on NHPR's Word of Mouth
View a slideshow of photos from An Evening with Naomi Shihab Nye Photos by Deb Cram
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Our 20th Annual Dinner featured a dazzling keynote address by literary legend Salman Rushdie. We extend our thanks to Sir Rushdie, to our sponsors, and to the 730 guests who joined us for a most memorable evening.
The New Hampshire Humanities Council thanks the sponsors whose generous support made this event possible, including:
Lead Sponsor, Public Service of New Hampshire;
Reception Sponsor, TransCanada;
Dinner Sponsor, Citizens Bank;
Book Sponsor, the University of New Hampshire; and
Wine Sponsor Lincoln Financial Group.
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Click here to view video clips from the 2009 Annual Dinner with Salman Rushdie.
Click here to view a slideshow of photos from the Annual Dinner by photographer Deb Cram.
| Ken Burns treated a capacity audience of 800 to an illuminating talk on his career as a documentary filmmaker and on the value of the public humanities at the Humanities Council’s 19th Annual Dinner on October 22. Burns was also named Director Emeritus of the Humanities Council for his extraordinary service to both the Council and to the nation. The evening included a preview of Burns’ stunning new film, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, which will air on PBS next Fall.
If you were not able to join us for this sold-out event, we hope you’ll plan to attend our 2009 Annual Dinner next Fall as we celebrate 35 years of connecting people with ideas. |
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The Humanities Council thanks the sponsors who supported this gala event:
Public Service of New Hampshire, Lead Sponsor for the 19th year;
Keynote Sponsor Bank of America,
Reception Sponsor TransCanada;
Book Sponsor, the University of New Hampshire;
Technology Sponsor FairPoint Communications
Table Sponsors
Citizens Bank
Commonwealth Dynamics, Inc.
Fidelity Investments
Hinckley, Allen & Snyder, LLP
TD Banknorth
Friends of the Humanities
Dayton and Dianne Duncan
Elektrisola
Florentine Films
Grappone Automotive Group
Harvest Capital
Lincoln Financial Group
New Hampshire Master Chorale
Northeast Delta Dental
Ocean Bank
Orr & Reno, PA
Phillips Exeter Academy
Pleasant View Retirement
Plymouth State University
Rivier College
Saint Anselm College
St. Paul’s School
Celebrated biographer and journalist Walter Isaacson delivered the keynote address at our 18th Annual Dinner on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 at the Center of New Hampshire in Manchester.
We also thank Keynote Sponsor Bank of America, Reception Sponsor Trans Canada, and Book Sponsor the University of New Hampshire, for their support for this gala event.
Walter Isaacson has had a long and distinguished career in American media. A former managing editor of Time magazine and former chairman and CEO of CNN, Isaacson is the President and CEO of The Aspen Institute, one of the world’s pre-eminent think-tanks, which is dedicated to informed dialogue and inquiry on issues of global concern.
Isaacson’s approach to leadership is influenced by his studies of Benjamin Franklin, Henry Kissinger, and some of the great American leaders of the Cold War. He is the author of best-selling biographies of Franklin and Kissinger and The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made, a study of leaders who steered America through the Cold War. His newly-released biography, Einstein: His Life and Universe, has been met with universal praise. Booklist called Isaacson’s new book a “...penetrating and magnificently nuanced biography of Albert Einstein” and said that “...Isaacson elucidates Einstein’s nonconformist and philosophical temperament and the particular nature of his genius within a richly textured social context, and he precisely explains Einstein’s ‘astonishing, mysterious, and counterintuitive’ scientific achievements and their epic consequences.”
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The Humanities Council hosted its 17th Annual Dinner on Thursday, September 28 at the Center of New Hampshire in Manchester. The keynote speaker,
E.J. Dionne, Jr., an award-winning columnist and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, discussed America's culture wars around the issue of religion in public life. Hear his remarks, which were recorded by WKXL radio. Governor John Lynch and Dr. Susan Lynch attended the event and made welcoming remarks.
Dionne was a guest on NHPR's The Exchange on Tuesday, September 26. Listen to an archived version of the show.
Our thanks to Public Service of New Hampshire, lead sponsor of our Annual Dinner for the 16th year.
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We also extend our thanks to our other event sponsors including:
Reception Sponsor, Bank of America;
Book Sponsor,
The University of New Hampshire;
Dinner Sponsors,
Citizens Bank;
The Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire;
Hinckley, Allen & Snyder, LLP;
Ocean National Bank;
Sheehan, Phinney, Bass + Green, PA;
and
TD Banknorth
and Table Sponsors
Dayton & Dianne Duncan;
Harvest Capital Management;
Lincoln Financial Group;
Northeast Delta Dental;
Orr & Reno, PA;
Pleasant View Retirement;
Ransmeier & Spellman, PC;
Saint Anselm College;
University System of New Hampshire;
and Verizon-NH
Copies of E.J. Dionne's books were available at the dinner courtesy of
Gibson's Bookstore in Concord.
Dionne signed extra copies of the books, which are available for sale at Gibson's. |
GovernorJohn Lynch and Dr. Susan Lynch
Bishop Gene Robinson and E.J. Dionne, Jr.
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