What’s it like to be owned by the world, to have populations claiming you, to have millions speaking on your behalf? Naomi Shihab Nye takes a close look — from a distance — at Jesus, and herself.

Naomi Shihab Nye is a professor of creative writing at Texas State University. From 2019-2021, Nye was the Young People's Poet Laureate through the Poetry Foundation. She is the author of You & Yours (BOA Editions 2005). Her more recent books include The Tiny Journalist (BOA Editions 2019), Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners (Greenwillow Books 2022), Cast Away (HarperCollins 2020), and Everything Comes Next: Collected and New Poems (Greenwillow Books 2020). She received the 2019 Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle.

Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

We’re pleased to offer Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem, and invite you to connect with Poetry Unbound throughout this season.

Order your copy of Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World and join us in our vibrant conversational space on Substack.

‘Mayor of Kingstown’ Season 1 Postmortem