Naomi Shihab Nye Workshop

April 5, 2024

Associate Director of the Rose O'Neill Literary House Dr. James Allen Hall introduced Naomi Shihab Nye.

Nye holds up the sign she found hanging around her town which was a part of the generative workshop.

In conjunction with the Kent County Poetry Festival, prolific poet Naomi Shihab Nye presented a generative workshop for the Washington College Community at the Rose O’Neill Literary House. The workshop began with Nye discussing her own relationship with poetry and how she was inspired by William Stanford’s poetry while in school. Nye is considered to be “a poet of the streets” since she is self taught and has never had any formal poetry training. This kind of natural training informed the way that Nye ran the workshop. To begin, each participant was given a notepad and pen in order to jot down their thoughts. Nye gave three prompts, having to do with what she found written on a grave, a sign once posted around her town, and pairs of “I remember/I don’t remember.” Then, after taking a few minutes per prompt, Nye asked the audience to pose a question and to answer it with what had been previously written to form a new poem. Nye was a great guest to have at the Lit House and provided so much good advice for aspiring writers.

Naomi Shihab Nye began the workshop by discussing her own journey with poetry. 

Coverage by

Delaney Runge ‘24