17 pages • 34 minutes read
Naomi Shihab NyeFamous
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1995A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Literary Context: The Influence of William Stafford
William Stafford (1914-1993), one of the most prolific poets in post-war America, is known as a poet’s poet. Awarded both a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize, Stafford, who taught creative writing at Oregon’s Lewis & Clark College for more than 30 years, has emerged as a poet respected by his peers, who in turn inspired and influenced successive generations of young poets who have found inspiration, direction, and purpose in his verse. Nye first came under the spell of Stafford’s poetry in an English class at Robert E. Lee High School in San Antonio, a tipping point epiphany that convinced her to pursue poetry. Nye came of age in a postmodern era where poetry became more and more elitist and, in turn, found its most eager audiences in classrooms. Stafford’s poetry, effortlessly colloquial and inviting, returned poetry to the world and encouraged readers to gently share with him his discovery of the stunning revelations of nature itself.
Resisting his post-Hiroshima generation’s easy embrace of chic apocalypticism, Stafford found limitless the radiant energy of the world and took to heart its urgent reassurance of hope and optimism. He advised up-and-coming poets to listen to the world around them and tune in to the secrets it wants to share. Stafford told poets, “Your job is to find out what the world is trying to be” (Stafford, William. “Vocation.” Poetry Foundation, 1962, Line 15), a line Nye often quotes. That commitment to discovering the joyful complications and splendid ironies of the real-time world Stafford revealed in poetic lines that, like Nye’s, seem unforced, even un-poetical, despite the careful sculpting of their sonic effect.
In addition to Nye, Stafford’s tender credo of trusting the world to speak to the poet who in turn shares those revelations to the widest possible range of readers influenced many other poets of Nye’s generation, among them Robert Bly, Wendell Berry, Joy Harjo, Camille T. Dungy, and, most notably, Mary Oliver, who won a Pulitzer Prize and was often shortlisted for the Nobel Prize.
Cultural Context: The Fame Trap and Gen Z
“I want to be famous” (Line 16), the speaker says with gentle mocking irony, but “in the way a pulley is famous / or a buttonhole” (Lines 19-20). A highly publicized national survey conducted by National Public Radio in 2019 confirmed what pop culture psychologists (as well as educators and parents) had begun to suspect: Members of Gen Z, the generation born in the new century, aspire most to be famous. According to the survey, one out of every four Gen Z individuals list being a social influencer as their dream occupation. Under the considerable (and ever-growing) reach of social media platforms, this generation sees fame, not success or even happiness, as an appropriate life goal. Fed by now a generation of reality shows and by the stories of teenage social influencers with astronomical numbers of followers, numbers that can quickly convert to sponsorships and access to more conventional avenues of celebrity (music, television, or films, for instance), members of Gen Z fall into what has been described as the “fame trap.” The hunger for fame comes to consume a young person. Self-expression becomes hardcore—even reckless, at times—self-promotion, all played out against the fleeting nature of such manufactured fame that pop artist Andy Warhol diagnosed and dismissed as everyone’s 15 minutes of fame. The reality of the long-shot possibility of becoming famous from social media posts leads Gen Z individuals into a self-destructive cycle of anxiety, jealousy, frustration, lowered self-esteem, depression, substance abuse disorders, and even suicidal ideations.
To that generation, Nye’s poem “Famous” extends a far less competitive and far more therapeutic concept of fame. Fame through social media involves promoting a select few, positioning these few up and apart from everyone else. Fame reduces their humanity. They become a commodity consumed. For Nye, members of Gen Z do not need to look up, they need only look around. Fame does not promote the few; fame involves everyone, everything, and it is not fleeting. It endures for all time. Fame is about connection, not self-promotion. Fame is about fitting in, not sticking out. The poem’s definition of fame offers encouragement and consolation: to be famous means to be perceived within a dynamic of reciprocal need, to humbly embrace being part of something, not apart from everything.
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By Naomi Shihab Nye
