Never in a Hurry

Never in a Hurry

Essays on People and Places

  • Author: Nye, Naomi Shihab
  • Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
  • ISBN: 9781570030826
  • eISBN Pdf: 9781643361253
  • Place of publication:  South Carolina , United States
  • Year of digital publication: 2020
  • Month: February
  • DDC: 814/.54
  • Language: English

Potluck suppers with could-be relatives, junkets to exotic locales, and the importance of strangers in our lives

In Never in a Hurry the poet Naomi Shihab Nye resist the American inclination to "leave toward places when we barely had time enough to get there." Instead she travels the world at an observant pace, talking to strangers and introducing readers to an endearing assemblage of eccentric neighbors, Filipina faith healers, dry-cleaning proprietors, and other quirky characters.

A Palestinian-American who lives in a Mexican-American neighborhood, Nye speaks for the mix of people and places that can be called the "American Experience." From St. Louis, the symbolic "Gateway to the West," she embarks on a westward migration to examine America, past and present, and to glimpse into the lives of its latest outsiders—illegal immigrants from Mexico and troubled inner-city children.

In other essays Nye ventures beyond North America's bounds, telling of a year in her childhood spent in Palestine and of an adulthood filled with cross-cultural quests. Whether recounting the purchase of a car on the island of Oahu or a camel-back ride through India's Thar Desert, Nye writes in wry, refreshing tones about themes that transcend borders and about the journey that remains the greatest of all—the journey from outside to in as the world enters each one of us, as we learn to see.

  • Cover
  • Never in a Hurry Essays on People and Places
  • Title
  • Dedication
  • Copyright
  • Contents
  • Acknowledgments
  • Gateway to the West
    • Growing
    • Newcomers in a Troubled Land
    • The Cookies
    • Commerce
    • Three Pokes of a Thistle
    • Thank You in Arabic
  • World Gifts
    • One Village
    • Local Hospitality
    • Grazing
    • Roses for Lubbock
    • Camel Like Only Camel
  • Lucky People
    • The Rattle of Wheels toward the Rooms of the New Mothers
    • Nineties
    • David Crockett's Other Life
    • Favorite Cleaners, San Antonio
    • Enigma
    • My Life with Medicine
    • Speaking Arabic
    • Maintenance
  • Troubled Land
    • Tulips
    • Pablo Tamayo
    • The World and All Its Teeth
    • Marie
    • Keys
    • Tomorrow We Smile
    • Field Trip
    • Neighborhood Quartet in a Minor Key
    • Home Address
    • Monumental
    • Bread
    • Broken Clock
  • Still the Sky
    • Poetry
    • Banned Poem
    • Women of the West
    • Used Cars on Oahu
    • Mint Snowball
    • White Coals
    • Talk, Talk, Talk
    • One Moment on Top of the Earth

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER

By subscribing, you accept our Privacy Policy