Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Born	1974 (age 49–50) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Nationality	American
Education	Ohio State University (BA, MFA)
Occupation(s)	Poet, author, professor

Aimee Nezhukumatathil (/ˈeɪmi nəˌzukuməˈtɒtɪl/; Malayalam: നേഴുകുമറ്റത്തിൽ; Malayalam: [n̪eɻukuməʈət̪ʰil]; born in 1974 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American poet and essayist. She currently serves as poetry editor of Sierra Magazine and as professor of English in the University of Mississippi's MFA program, where she previously was the John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence in 2016-17. She has also taught at the Kundiman Retreat for Asian American writers. Nezhukumatathil draws upon her Filipina and Malayali Indian background to give her perspective on love, loss, and land. She lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with her husband, Dustin Parsons, and their two sons.

Work

She is author of four poetry collections. Her first collection, Miracle Fruit, won the 2003 Tupelo Press Prize and the Global Filipino Literary Award in Poetry, was named the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year in Poetry, and was a finalist for the Asian American Literary Award and the Glasgow Prize. Her second, At the Drive-In Volcano, won the 2007 Balcones Poetry Prize. With Ross Gay, in 2014 she co-authored the epistolary nature chapbook, Lace & Pyrite. Oceanic was published in 2018 and won the 2019 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award for poetry. She is also the author of the New York Times bestselling book of essays World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments, which was published in 2020 by Milkweed Editions and was a Barnes & Noble Book of the Year, as well as an NPR 2020 Best Book of the Year.

Of her process, Nezhukumatathil has stated: "I never set out to write a book—even after 4 books, I still find that prospect daunting. Instead, I focus on the individual poems, getting those done week after week. And sometimes some quiet times in between too."

Among Nezhukumatathil's awards are a 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry, a Mississippi Arts Commission Fellowship grant, inclusion in the Best American Poetry series, a 2009 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in poetry, and a Pushcart Prize for the poem "Love in the Orangery". Her poems and essays have appeared in New Voices: Contemporary Poetry from the United States, The American Poetry Review, FIELD, Prairie Schooner, Poetry, New England Review, Converse: Contemporary English Poetry by Indians (edited by Sudeep Sen, and published by Pippa Rann Books, London), and Tin House. Nezhukumatathil serves as poetry editor for Orion magazine.

Books

Nezhukumatathil reading at Philips Collection

• Fishbone, Snail's Pace Press, 2000 (chapbook)
• One Bite, Ohio State University, 2000 (MFA thesis)
• Miracle Fruit: poems, Tupelo Press, 2003, ISBN 9780971031081
• At the Drive-in Volcano: Poems, Tupelo Press, 2007, ISBN 9781932195453
• Lucky Fish, Tupelo Press, 2011, ISBN 9781932195583
• Lace & Pyrite, (with Ross Gay) Ow Arts Press, 2014 ISBN 9780982710678
• Oceanic, Copper Canyon Press, 2018 ISBN 9781556595264
• World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments, Milkweed Editions, 2020, ISBN 1571313656
• Bite by Bite: Nourishments & Jamborees, Ecco Press, 2024, ISBN 9780063282261

Anthologies

• Melissa Tuckey, ed. (2018). Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology. University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0820353159.
• Barbara Hamby; David Kirby, eds. (2010). "What I learned from the Incredible Hulk". Seriously Funny: Poems About Love, Death, Religion, Art, Politics, Sex, and Everything Else. University of Georgia Press. p. 19. ISBN 9780820330877.
• Rachel Zucker; Arielle Greenberg, eds. (2010). "Overwinter". Starting Today: 100 Poems for Obama's First 100 Days. University of Iowa Press. p. 5. ISBN 9781587298714. Aimee Nezhukumatathil.
• John McNally, ed. (2007). "A History of Hair". When I Was a Loser: True Stories of (Barely) Surviving High School. Simon and Schuster. pp. 96–108. ISBN 9781416539377.

External links

• Audio: Aimee Nezhukumatathil reads "Letter to the Northern Lights" for Academy of American Poets
• Audio: Aimee Nezhukumatathil Reading for 'From the Fishouse
• Audio: Slate > Aimee Nezhukumatathil Reading Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia > Jan. 20, 2004
• Review: Third Coast > Review by Review by J. Gabriel Scala of Miracle Fruit
• Review: New Pages Book Reviews
• Review: South Asian Women's Network
• Review: Our Own Voice > October 2004 > Review by Carlene Sobrino Bonnivier of Miracle Fruit
• Review: Luna: A Journal of Poetry and Translation > May 19, 2007 > Review by Rigoberto González of At the Drive-in Volcano