Naomi Shihab Nye was six years old the first time she came to Chicago, and she immediately fell in love with it. Her first poem, presented enthusiastically to her first-grade teacher one week after her visit, was an ode to the ‘Windy City.’

“The buildings seem extremely tall/ compared to little me.”

Nye read this poem, along with a collection of several more recent ones, to the student body at an MX and a selected audience at a following evening talk on Wednesday, October 24th.

Born in St. Louis to a Palestinian refugee journalist and an American painter, Nye’s work draws heavily on her own life experience, and primarily examines different cultures and people. Nye is the winner of four Pushcart Prizes, the Jane Addams Children’s Book award, the Paterson Poetry Prize, the Robert Creeley Award, and the 2013 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature, and a number of other awards and titles.

For Nye, the most powerful thing about poetry is its power to connect human beings regardless of race, religion, gender, or any other man-made division. “My passion for writing came from an apprehension, that I already had as a six year old, that language could connect us,” Nye said. “Words were magical. You put a few words together, and something interesting happens. Words belong to all of us, and when you put them together someone could understand what you’re trying to say.”

Nye’s first experience with the connection of words took place in her first grade classroom, in reaction to her very first poem about the wonder and grandeur of Chicago.

“An older, maybe third grade girl came up to me on the playground, and she said ‘did you write that Chicago poem?’” Nye said, relaying the memory to third through twelfth graders at MX. “And I said ‘yes, yes I did.’ She said: ‘oh, I went there too. I know what you mean.’”

For Nye, the connectedness and solidarity she felt with this older girl was inspiring, and determined the course of the rest of her life. “She just looked at me. And that, for me, was my magic moment. I dreamt of becoming a writer. Something inside of me just clicked. I felt connected.”

The connections Nye forms through her writing resemble empathy. “It’s a sense of curiosity and understanding about somebody else’s experience,” Nye said. “It’s an attempt to imagine what somebody else feels like in the world, regardless of how different their experience is from your own.”

Nye thinks that these kinds of connections are essential now more than ever. “This practice of connection,” Nye said, “is under heavy assault in the United States right now. I think we are at a really difficult time with connection and empathy, and I think about it with more of a sense of urgency.”

One year after writing her original “Chicago” poem,, Nye began to send her works to magazines. After eight tries, her first published piece appeared in a local magazine, and, according to Nye, her practice and philosophy has not changed much since those days. “I’ve always stayed very simple,” Nye said. “I’ve never had a publishing agent, and I don’t keep up with the crazy, online world we live in today.”

Nye’s advice for writers of any kind anywhere is simple. “I learned that to be a writer all you needed to do was just stay in touch with your thoughts,” Nye said. “You needed to write things in a notebook. You didn’t have to finish your poem when you first wrote it down.”

Nye credits much of her success to practices she developed as a child, such as daily writing, and her tendency to argue and engage with reading material.

Dialogue with a piece of any nature is important. “What interests me most about writing,” Nye said, “is its power to connect people. We can discover who we are connected to, the places we are connected to, the details and stories that matter to us in our own lives.”

According to Nye, daily writing is essential for realizing these connections. In order to make the links between people, memories, events, and ideas, writing down a few lines each day is necessary.

In addition, mentorship is a large part of a developing writer’s experience. “Human expression is extremely important,” Nye said. “I’ve been working in schools since I was extremely young. I’m just trying to encourage people to feel more confident, and more fluid, and more happy with their own writing.”

Senior and member of Poetry Club Simon Goldman feels that Nye was successful in this mission. Goldman and the rest of the club met with Nye during H3 and Lunch. “I started to think about every little thing more,” Goldman said. “Nye just thinks, cares about, and examines every little detail. It’s amazing how much she takes in and studies; everything from a building in Chicago, to this Writers Museum, to her collections of news clippings dating years back. It’s inspiring.”

Nye spoke at Parker on the heels of a visit to the American Writers Museum in Chicago, where she was honored with a quote on their wall and in their museum notepads.

“Going to the American Writers Museum yesterday gave me a tremendous sense of solidarity with fellow Americans, Nye said. “Yesterday, I had the opportunity to feel very close to all of these American voices. Different styles, different writers, it was a beautiful experiences.”