Naomi Shihab Nye has been selected as the recipient of the Wallace Stevens Award for lifetime achievement and “proven mastery in the art of poetry” from the Academy of American Poets.
Nye, who lives in San Antonio, will receive a $100,000 stipend.
Ricardo Maldonado is the president and executive director of the Academy of American Poets. “Over the years, Academy chancellors have gathered to identify the remarkable contributions of American poets,” he said in a statement.
“We are thrilled to be celebrating ninety years of poets and poetry as an Academy by honoring our chancellors’ newest selections,” said Maldonado. He noted about Nye the ways she makes space for “the extraordinary possibility of poetry as a register of observation and reflection, compassion and togetherness, justice and grace.”
"The significance of these honors is not only measured by the bounty of the prize purse and the illustrious roster of prior winners but also by the composition of the jury,” said Tess O’Dwyer, the chair of the board of the Academy. She said that the Stevens prize selection is "among the most momentous decisions that the Academy’s fifteen-member board of chancellors will make in any given year."
Board members include a slate of illustrious poets: Jericho Brown, Natalie Diaz, Nikky Finney, Carolyn Forché, Kimiko Hahn, Joy Harjo, Ilya Kaminsky, Dorianne Laux, Ed Roberson, Patricia Smith, Tracy K. Smith, Diane Seuss, Natasha Trethewey, Afaa Michael Weaver, and Kevin Young.
Academy Chancellor Afaa Michael Weaver said about Nye:
“In a stunning spectrum of works published in a period beginning nearly fifty years ago, Naomi Shihab Nye has borne witness to the complexities of cultural difference that connect us as human beings, evidencing a firm commitment to the poet as bearer of light and hope. In celebrating her Palestinian heritage with a gentle but unflinching commitment, her body of work is a rare and precious living entity in our time, when the tragic conflict between Gaza and Israel threatens to deepen wounds and resentments everywhere. Rooted in the profound influence of her family’s love of their culture, Nye’s commitment to hope establishes her as one of the most important poet ambassadors in our time, extending as she does the image of the American literary artist as global citizen. In supporting civility in all spaces, she echoes the concerns of William Stafford, an important influence. What her work would have us know, namely that only peace brings lasting peace, is what her grandmother and elders taught her as a child, the ubiquitous power of the beauty of simple things, the necessities of life that we must share if we are to endure.”
Past recipients of the Wallace Stevens award, include poets John Ashbery, Rita Dove, Louise Glück, W. S. Merwin, and Adrienne Rich.
The Stevens prize was among other recognitions announced Friday by the Academy, which was founded in 1934.
Nye is the author of numerous poetry collections, including Grace Notes: Poems about Family, Cast Away: Poems for Our Time, and The Tiny Journalist.
She is also the author of several books of poetry and fiction for children, including Habibi, for which she received the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award in 1998.
Nye has traveled to the Middle East and Asia for the United States Information Agency (USIA) three times, promoting international goodwill through the arts.
Nye’s other honors include awards from the International Poetry Forum and the Texas Institute of Letters, the Charity Randall Citation from the International Poetry Forum, the National Book Critics Circle Lifetime Achievement Award, and four Pushcart Prizes.
She has been a Lannan Fellow, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, and a Witter Bynner Fellow. In 1988, she received the Academy of American Poets’ Lavan Award, judged by W. S. Merwin.
Nye served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2009 to 2014 and was the Poetry Foundation’s Young People’s Poet Laureate from 2019 to 2021. In April 2022, for National Poetry Month, Nye served as the Guest Editor of Poem-a-Day.
Naomi Shihab Nye will accept her award during a ceremony at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City on Friday.
