Aimee Nezhukumatathil is a professor of English in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program. Her newest collection of poems is OCEANIC, winner of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for poetry (Copper Canyon Press, 2018). With Ross Gay, she co-wrote the chapbook, LACE & PYRITE, a collaboration of nature poems. She is also the author of a forthcoming book of illustrated nature essays from Milkweed Editions in 2020. She is the poetry editor of Orion and her poems have appeared in the Best American Poetry 2015 & 2018 series, American Poetry Review, New England Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, and Tin House. Her honors include a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pushcart Prize.
Aimee Nezhukumatathil
blog post
Seven Poems for National Poetry Month
In honor of National Poetry Month (and Earth Day!), I’ve selected a poetry sampler that captures the range and push into the horizon of what I hope to bring to Orion’s Continue reading
Feature
Letters from Two Gardens
IN THE LATE JULY swelter and dragonfly buzz of summer, poets Aimee Nezhukumatathil and Ross Gay began a correspondence of poems — sent the old-fashioned way, through the mail. Aimee wrote Continue reading
audio
Ross Gay and Aimee Nezhukumatathil Read “Letters from Two Gardens”
Poets Ross Gay and Aimee Nezhukumatathil read from their poetry correspondence, “Letters from Two Gardens,” tracing the shape of a year as experienced through each of their gardens.
Poetry
The Pepper Kingdom
Never has the world seen so much rumble and sail over such a small berry. Dark meteor, perfect pop of fire—you docked millions of boats to the southern coast of India, Continue reading
Poetry
Kottayam Morning
Chickens disturb the pebbles just outside my bedroom window as they skulk and search for bark crickets. The neighbors still mourn their youngest son, caught under an oily car. Four mornings Continue reading
Review
Sestets
THE POEMS in Wright’s astonishing nineteenth collection of poetry serve as a loyal lighthouse to the reader: a sure and steady beam that pulses, discovers, and searches out — all while Continue reading
Poetry
Suppose You Were a Moray Eel
when ancient Romans kept glass aquariums filled to bubbling with your brothers and old Licinius Muraena himself loved to throw slaves in the water, stripping men to bits. You cannot help Continue reading