I remember the first time I picked up Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends in my elementary school library. It was filled with delightfully clever and funny rhymes, and the words danced off my ...

As I have every year since 2014, in 2025 I set aside a couple of months to peruse the year’s books of poetry — at least those books I had on hand. In the past, I’ve titled my annual roundup — one ...

Editor’s Note Naomi Shihab Nye was Poetry Editor at the Texas Observer for the past 28 years. A sixth-grader wearing a yellow floral dress waved me down, then sidled up to my car window in Albany, ...