Episode #098 Vocabulary Of Dearness - Naomi Shihab Nye - Reflections Week Ep. 6

Connor and Jack close out Poetry Month 2020 with a series of shorter episodes about short poems that can be comforting springboards to reflection and contemplation. In this episode, they discuss Naomi Shihab Nye's poem "Vocabulary of Dearness." They explore the way the poem captures the power of language and go down the rabbit hole of some of their favorite words.

Vocabulary of Dearness

By: Naomi Shihab Nye

How a single word

may shimmer and rise

off the page, a wafer of

syllabic light, a bulb

of glowing meaning,

whatever the word,

try “tempestuous” or “suffer,”

any word you have held

or traded so it lives a new life

the size of two worlds.

Say you carried it

up a hill and it helped you

move. Without this

the days would be thin sticks

thrown down in a clutter of leaves,

and where is the rake?

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