To me the world of poetry is a house with thousands of glittering windows. Our words and images, land to land, era to era, shed light on one another. Our words dissolve the shadows we imagine fall between. "One night I dreamt of spring," writes Syrian poet Muhammad al-Maghut, "and when I awoke/flowers covered my pillow." Isn't this where empathy begins? Other countries stop seeming quite so "foreign," or inanimate, or strange, when we listen to the intimate voices of their citizens. I can never understand it when teachers claim they are "uncomfortable" with poetry -- as if poetry demands they be anything other than responsive, curious human beings. If poetry comes out of the deepest places in the human soul and experience, shouldn't it be as important to learn about one another's poetry, country to country, as one another's weather or gross national products? It seems critical to me. It's another way to study geography!
--Naomi Shihab Nye
"Lights in the Window"
Reflect on the above quotation in light of your reading of Nye's poetry.

http://forum-network.org/lecture/meet-poet-naomi-shihab-nye

http://oneheartforpeace.blogspot.com/2010/02/light-and-flight-from-naomi-shihab-nye.html

http://godlas.myweb.uga.edu/shihabnye.html

Naomi Shihab Nye