<div>Poet, teacher, essayist, anthologist, songwriter and singer, <b>Naomi Shihab Nye</b> is one of the country's most acclaimed writers. Her voice is generous; her vision true; her subjects ordinary people, and ordinary situations which, when rendered through her language, become remarkable. In this, her fourth full collection of poetry, we see with new eyes-a grandmother's scarf, an alarm clock, a man carrying his son on his shoulders.<br><br><b>Valentine for Ernest Mann</b><br><br>You can’t order a poem like you order a taco.<br>Walk up to the counter and say, "I’ll take two"<br>and expect it to handed back to you<br>on a shiny plate.<br><br>Still, I like you spirit.<br>Anyone who says, "Here’s my address,<br>write me a poem," deserves something in reply.<br>So I’ll tell a secret instead:<br>poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,<br>they are sleeping. They are the shadows<br>drifting across our ceilings the moment<br>before we wake up. What we have to do<br>is live in a way that lets us find them.<br><br>Once I knew a man who gave his wife<br>two skunks for a valentine.<br>He couldn’t understand why she was crying.<br>"I thought they had such beautiful eyes."<br>And he was serious. He was a serious man<br>who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly<br>just because the world said so. He really<br><i>liked</i> those skunks. So, he re-invented them<br>as valentines and they became beautiful.<br>At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding<br>in the eyes of skunks for centuries<br>crawled out and curled up at his feet.<br><br>Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us<br>we find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock<br>in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.<br>And let me know.</div> Read Less