As a direct line to human feeling, empathic experience, genuine

Hear now the words of Naomi Shihab Nye, poet of tenderness and truth, who declared: “As a direct line to human feeling, empathic experience, genuine language and detail, poetry is everything that headline news is not. It takes us inside situations, helps us imagine life from more than one perspective, honors imagery and metaphor—those great tools of thought—and deepens our confidence in a meaningful world.” In these lines she draws a boundary between the fleeting glare of the news and the enduring fire of poetry, showing us that where news informs, poetry transforms; where news speaks to the mind, poetry reaches the heart.

For headline news tells us what has happened: the battle fought, the house burned, the lives lost. It is fast, stripped of depth, designed for urgency. But poetry does what news cannot—it opens the soul to the reality within the event. News tells us, “A child was displaced by war.” Poetry takes us inside the child’s eyes, lets us feel the sand beneath her feet, the weight of absence in her arms. News informs us of numbers, but poetry restores the face, the breath, the trembling humanity hidden in those numbers.

The ancients understood this difference well. When Homer sang of the Trojan War, he did not write the headlines of battles and statistics. He sang of Hector’s farewell to Andromache, of Achilles weeping for Patroclus, of Priam kissing the hand of the man who slew his son. These were the perspectives of the heart, not merely of the field. The war itself might have been chronicled by a scribe, but its meaning—the sorrow, the love, the rage—lives forever through the poet.

So too in more recent times, we find examples. During the horrors of World War I, newspapers shouted of victories and losses, but it was the poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon that revealed the deeper truth. Their words carried the mud, the blood, the gas, the terror—things no headline could hold. In their verses, we feel the soldier’s anguish, the futility of war, the broken dreams of youth. Through metaphor, through imagery, the world was reminded that behind the numbers lay human souls.

Nye also speaks of imagery and metaphor as “great tools of thought.” Indeed, they are not mere ornaments of language, but ways of understanding. To call hope a bird, or grief a stone, is not simply decoration—it is revelation. For metaphors allow us to think what cannot be spoken plainly; they join the visible with the invisible. This is why poetry endures even when the facts are forgotten. It gives us not only knowledge, but wisdom, not only information, but meaning.

And in this act of meaning-making, poetry strengthens us. In a world where news often leaves us weary, disillusioned, and confused, poetry reminds us that there is still coherence, still beauty, still something to hold. It deepens our confidence in a meaningful world, for it shows us that even suffering can be witnessed with compassion, even chaos can be shaped into song. Where news may leave us despairing, poetry whispers that our lives are not random, that our struggles have dignity, that our stories matter.

O children of tomorrow, take this lesson: do not live by headlines alone. Let the news inform you, but let poetry humanize you. Read the verses of those who lived through sorrow and joy, for they will teach you to see not only with the eye but with the heart. When you write, do not fear metaphor, for it is the bridge between what is seen and unseen. And in your own life, when the world seems empty or meaningless, turn to poetry, for it will remind you that meaning is always there, waiting to be spoken into light.

Thus, the words of Naomi Shihab Nye endure as guidance: news may tell us what has happened, but poetry teaches us why it matters. And to live fully, to live wisely, we must embrace not only the headlines of the day, but the verses of eternity. For poetry does not merely report life—it redeems it.