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About the Author

Aimee Nezhukumatathil was born in Chicago to a Filipina mother and a father from South India. She is the author of the New York Times best-selling book of illustrated nature essays, WORLD OF WONDERS: IN PRAISE OF FIREFLIES, WHALE SHARKS, & OTHER ASTONISHMENTS (2020, Milkweed Editions). She has four previous poetry collections: OCEANIC (Copper Canyon Press, 2018), winner of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award; LUCKY FISH (2011) winner of the gold medal for the Independent Publisher Book Awards, AT THE DRIVE-IN VOLCANO (2007), winner of the Balcones Prize; and MIRACLE FRUIT (2003), winner of the Tupelo Press Prize, ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Award, the Global Filipino Award and a finalist for The Glasgow Prize and the Asian American Literary Award. Her most recent chapbook is LACE & PYRITE, a collaboration of epistolary nature poems with the poet Ross Gay.

Nature Writing

Nature Writing
Definition from The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. : Oxford University Press.

EXAMPLES OF NATURE WRITING

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Publication Date: 2013
An inspired weaving of indigenous knowledge, plant science, and personal narrative from a distinguished professor of science and a Native American whose previous book, Gathering Moss, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing.
H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
Publication Date: 2015
The instant New York Times bestseller and award-winning sensation, Helen Macdonald's story of adopting and raising one of nature's most vicious predators has soared into the hearts of millions of readers worldwide.
Ghost Fishing: an eco-justice poetry anthology
Publication Date: 2018
Ghost Fishing is the first anthology to focus solely on poetry with an eco-justice bent. A culturally diverse collection entering a field where nature poetry anthologies have historically lacked diversity, this book presents a rich terrain of contemporary environmental poetry with roots in many cultural traditions.

About the Book

"A collection of non-fiction of essays about the natural world, and the way its inhabitants can teach, support, and inspire us.

As a child, Nezhukumatathil called many places home: the grounds of a Kansas mental institution, where her Filipina mother was a doctor; the open skies and tall mountains of Arizona, where she hiked with her Indian father; and the chillier climes of western New York and Ohio. But no matter where she was transplanted—no matter how awkward the fit or forbidding the landscape—she was able to turn to our world’s fierce and funny creatures for guidance." -- from the publisher

Read an excerpt -- "Touch-Me-Nots"
Read Q & A with the author by Ross Gay.
Listen to the audio excerpt from World of Wonders
Borrow a print or online copy from the Library.
Color some of the creatures from the book by downloading these coloring sheets.

Media

Poems by Nezhukumatathil

Selected Poems
Selected poems from around the web and beyond the beyond (Source: Author's website).
Poetry Foundation - Poems by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Books by Nezhukumatathil

Oceanic by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Publication Date: 2018
With inquisitive flair, Aimee Nezhukumatathil creates a thorough registry of the earth's wonderful and terrible magic. In her fourth collection of poetry, she studies forms of love as diverse and abundant as the ocean itself. She brings to life a father penguin, a C-section scar, and the Niagara Falls with a powerful force of reverence for life and living things. With an encyclopedic range of subjects and unmatched sincerity, Oceanic speaks to each reader as a cooperative part of the earth,an extraordinary neighborhood to which we all belong.
Lucky Fish by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Publication Date: 2011
LUCKY FISH travels along a lush current—a confluence of leaping vocabulary and startling formal variety, with upwelling gratitude at its source: for love, motherhood, "new hope," and the fluid and rich possibilities of words themselves. With an exuberant appetite for "my morning song, my scurry-step, my dew," anchored in complicated human situations, this astounding young poet's third collection of poems is her strongest yet.
Miracle Fruit by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Publication Date: 2003
As three worlds collide, a mother's Philippines, a father's India and the poet's contemporary America, the resulting impressions are chronicled in this collection of incisive and penetrating verse. The writer weaves her words carefully into a wise and affecting embroidery that celebrates the senses while remaining down-to-earth and genuine. "We see that everything is in fact miracle fruit, including this book itself"-Andrew Hudgins.
At the Drive-in Volcano by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Publication Date: 2007
The astonishing second book by a lively and inventive American poet of Filipina-Indian descent. Naomi Shihab Nye says of this book, "Aimee Nezhukumatathil's poems are . . . ripe, funny and fresh. They're the fullness of days, deliciously woven of heart and verve, rich with sources and elements-animals, insects, sugar, cardamom, legends, countries, relatives, soaps, fruits-taste and touch. I love the nubby layerings of lines, luscious textures and constructions. . . . She knows that many worlds may live in one house. . . ."
Lace and Pyrite by Aimee Nezhukumatathil; Ross Gay
Publication Date: 2014

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