I think I am in shock. I don’t want you to think I live this way all the time. This is the nicest thing that has ever happened to me in my life, and I mean that with all my heart, my mind, my soul. Ibtisam, your welcoming of my father and grandmother to this room felt particularly appropriate on this sacred Day of the Dead, because I have felt them with me all day. They would have been so proud to meet all of you. They would have loved the music. They would have enjoyed the food. They would have thought N, S, and K were the three coolest sisters ever born on the earth, and trust me all of you who work or study at the University of Oklahoma, I am a new PR agent for your school. I am asked by high school students every week of my life, Where do you think we should apply to college? Sometimes I pause; no longer will there be a pause. I know where I am sending all of them: OU (applause). My thank-you list from this incredible week, as you can imagine, is so long, and I know you have been very patiently sitting here hearing all of this information about me so generously given. So I have to make an umbrella thank-you to everybody. Sometimes things in life happen for which we feel intensely grateful, and we know our thanks could never be big enough. I always felt that way about being born to begin with. I definitely feel that way about the Neustadt legacy. The whole NSK Neustadt Children’s Prize, all of the jurors, all of the work you are doing, all of the people you have honored in the past, deepest thanks to everyone here and to your father, Walter Neustadt Jr., whom I wish I had known. Today we just about figured out that he and my father may have known one another even briefly, crossing in Dallas . . . To RC Davis-Undiano, everybody at the amazing World Literature Today magazine, which I have thought, for years, has to be the best magazine in the world. To Nathan Brown, our shepherd Oklahoma poet laureate with a lariat corralling his sheep, and to all the writers and readers in this room, everybody. Deepest thanks to the faculty. Thank you, sky of Oklahoma, for staying calm above us all (laughter). You are the best. You have all blessed everyone around you this week, and we visitors are stunned by the abundant hospitality we have felt here. I wanted to read a poem on behalf of all of my Arab brothers and sisters who are here enjoying your hospitality—it’s called “Red Brocade”— to thank all of you for welcoming us. The Arabs used to say, When a stranger appears at your door, feed him for three days before asking who he is, where he’s come from, where he’s headed. That way, he’ll have strength enough to answer. Or, by then you’ll be such good friends you don’t care. Let’s go back to that. Rice? Pine nuts? Here, take the red brocade pillow. My child will serve water to your horse. No, I was not busy when you came! I keep feeling so much gratitude for what we are given in our lives. All of us, by way of accident, by way of things we couldn’t have selected ourselves. The worlds we are born into, the people we are related to, the landscapes we learn to love wherever we are. Landscapes We Learn to Love” The 2013 NSK Neustadt Prize Lecture Naomi Shihab Nye 50 worldliteraturetoday.org “ cover feature I was not preparing to be busy. That’s the armor everyone put on to pretend they had a purpose in the world. I refuse to be claimed. Your plate is waiting. We will snip fresh mint into your tea. All of us at the table together. The young writers, the older writers, the readers of all ages, the librarians, guides among books, the Neustadt family, who have championed voices, voices that encouraged us and said we listen...