Naomi Shihab Nye’s latest collection of poetry and prose is called 'Honeybee’

At the beginning of Honeybee, there’s a quote from a poem by Antonio Machado: “Last night I dreamed—blessed illusion—that I had a beehive here in my heart and that the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures.” Why did you choose that verse?

For one thing, somebody must have had some failures in terms of how we respect or honor the creatures of the environment, such as the honeybee. Is it too late (and I’m hoping it’s not) to see their population not diminish entirely? I was also thinking of our nation’s political failures: we’re in the midst of a major disaster, in terms of our relationship with the rest of the world.

What does our nation need to do?

We need to elect Senator Obama. I have a full desire to see someone with his spirit of eloquence and tolerance in a position that could help us regain some integrity in the eyes of the world. I was in Oman, working at the end of January, and everybody’s rooting for Obama overseas. If you’re an American, the first thing they say to you is, “Are you voting for Obama?” And when you say yes, it’s like, “OK, we’ll give you another chance.”

You’ve often written about the solace that poetry can offer, even in the midst of the most horrific events. Why is that?

There’s something in poetry, some acknowledgment of humanity that gives us a sense of intimate connection to one another and also to our own experience. Poetry suggests that in our own moments of alienation, we’re not the only person who’s ever felt despair, grief, longing, regret, or shame. These are all intimate human experiences that poetry doesn’t shy away from. So people often find themselves fortified by a poem or pulled back from some precipice at a crucial moment.

Can a poem actually save someone’s life?

I have met so many teenagers over the years who told me that they did not commit suicide because of a poem they found. For whatever reason, they randomly opened a book and read a poem by someone long dead and felt somehow befriended by a voice and thought, “I’m not as alone as I thought.”

When you work with younger students, what do you talk about?

Even at the elementary level, I talk about my incredible sorrow over the proliferation of violence. I was at Southern Illinois University when the Northern Illinois University disaster happened, and I was with elementary kids, as well as high school and university kids. And, of course, the elementary kids were hearing about the shooting going on in their own state. Violence, unfortunately, is not a foreign entity to any kids these days, and I think we have to acknowledge that and talk about what it indicates. So I like to get up on my soapbox and tell kids that every act of violence is a betrayal of language.

A betrayal of language? What do you mean?

I mean every act of violence suggests that there was nothing more that could have been said to resolve a conflict, to move us forward. Like when the U.S. started bombing Iraq, it was as if we were saying there was nothing more we could say to Iraq, which nobody in the world believes except the Bush administration.

Since your poems are inspired by everyday events, I have this fantasy of you driving down the road and suddenly pulling over to jot down an idea—or being in a grocery store and whipping out a notepad.

That’s completely true. Those are the two examples I always give kids. If you go around waiting for the big idea to hit you on Saturday when you’re going to take five hours to write, forget it. It’s not happening. But if you’re willing to pull over the car—or in my case, if you’re willing to stop your bike and always carry a notepad, you’ll be in better shape. You’re like a seer—that’s me—that’s my life, very nonintellectual.