Sandra & Gary Sojka Visiting Poet Series
The Sandra and Gary Sojka Visiting Poet Series was established in 1995 through the generosity of Gary Sojka, who served as president of Bucknell University from 1985-1995, and his wife Sandra. The Sojka Visiting Poet Series brings a distinguished poet to Bucknell for a visit each fall. In addition to presenting a reading, the Sojka poet meets in an informal venue with students and other members of the Bucknell community.
Poets are chosen by invitation only; the Stadler Center for Poetry does not accept applications for this position.
Naomi Shihab Nye
Sandra & Gary Sojka Visiting Poet, 2012–13
Naomi Shihab Nye describes herself as a "wandering poet." She has spent thirty-seven years traveling the country and the world to lead writing workshops and inspire students of all ages. Nye was born to a Palestinian father and an American mother and grew up in St. Louis, Jerusalem, and San Antonio. Drawing on her Palestinian-American heritage, the cultural diversity of her home in Texas, and her experiences traveling in Asia, Europe, Canada, Mexico, Central and South America and the Middle East, Nye uses her writing to attest to our shared humanity.
Naomi Shihab Nye is the author and/or editor of more than thirty volumes. Her books of poetry include 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, A Maze Me: Poems for Girls, Red Suitcase, Words under the Words, Fuel, and You & Yours (a best-selling poetry book of 2006). She is also the author of Mint Snowball (paragraphs); Never in a Hurry and I'll Ask You Three Times, Are You Okay? Tales of Driving and Being Driven (essays); Habibi and Going, Going (novels for young readers); and Baby Radar and Sitti's Secrets (picture books). Other works include eight prize-winning poetry anthologies for young readers, including Time You Let Me In, This Same Sky, The Space Between Our Footsteps: Poems & Paintings from the Middle East, and What Have You Lost? Her recent collection of poems for young adults entitled Honeybee won the 2008 Arab American Book Award in the Children's/Young Adult category. Two new books are forthcoming in winter 2012: There Is No Long Distance Now (a collection of very short stories) and Transfer (poems).
Naomi Shihab Nye has been a Lannan Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Witter Bynner Fellow (Library of Congress). She has received a Lavan Award from the Academy of American Poets, the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, the Paterson Poetry Prize, four Pushcart Prizes, and numerous honors for her children's literature, including two Jane Addams Children's Book Awards. In 2011 Nye won the Golden Rose Award given by the New England Poetry Club, the oldest poetry reading series in the country. Her collection 19 Varieties of Gazelle was a finalist for the National Book Award. She is a regular columnist for Organica. Her work has been presented on National Public Radio on A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer's Almanac. She has been featured on two PBS poetry specials: "The Language of Life with Bill Moyers" and "The United States of Poetry" and also appeared on NOW with Bill Moyers. In January 2010 she was elected to the Board of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets.
Events for Naomi Shihab Nye
Conversation and Q&A
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
4 p.m. Willard Smith Library, Vaughan Literature BuildingPoetry Reading
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
7 p.m. Bucknell HallBoth events are free and open to the public.
Former Sojka Visiting Poets
1995-96 Ellen Bryant Voigt
1996-97 Donald Justice
1997-98 Lorna Goodison
1998-99 John Haines
1999-00 Eavan Boland
2000-01 Robert Pinsky
2001-02 Paul Muldoon
2002-03 Maxine Kumin
2003-04 Stephen Dunn
2004-05 Elizabeth Alexander
2005-06 Philip Appleman
2006-07 Cornelius Eady
2007-08 Robin Becker
2008-09 Adam Zagajewski
2009-10 Baron Wormser
2010-11 Carl Phillips
2011-12 Tony Hoagland
Stadler Center for Poetry
