In 2020, poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil published her first nonfiction book, World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks & Other Astonishments. In the book’s thirty dazzling essays, Nezhukumatathil weaves love stories about being a daughter, a partner, a mother, and a teacher with reverence for wild animals and plants and what they give us – their ability to expand our imagination and empathy, to connect us to others, to unearth memories, to break our habits of thinking, to teach us lessons big and small, and — perhaps most of all — to simply leave us gobsmacked, humbled, and thrilled to remember that creatures like narwhals and newts exist in this world.
At a time when reflection on the natural world is often defined by despair and loss, Nezhukamatathil’s work is exuberant and full of contagious joy for the beauty and kinship that the world still offers us. The daughter of a Filipina mother and a Malayali Indian father, Nezhukamatathil writes about the human and non-human organisms she has learned from and who have shaped her. The peacocks that she fell madly in love with as eight-year-old on her first trip to India, and then proudly drew in class in small town Iowa, only to be reprimanded by her teacher for not drawing an “American” animal. The beloved and lost pet cockatiel, Chico, that her parents spent hours frantically searching for, and eventually found safe and sound on the tip-top of the persimmon tree. The superb bird of paradise whose spectacular courtship moves parallel the ebullient synchronicity of the dance floor at her wedding when the DJ played the “Macarena.” The fireflies that remind her of summer nights with her parents and sister in their Oldsmobile.
It was no surprise to Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s readers that World of Wonders became a New York Times best-seller and was named Barnes and Nobles’ 2020 ‘Book of the Year.’ Aimee is also the author of Lace & Pyrite, a collaboration of epistolary garden poems with Ross Gay, and of four previous poetry collections, most recently Oceanic. Her work has received many honors, including the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Pushcart Prize. When she’s not busy chatting with her backyard birds, she is a professor of English and Creative Writing in the University of Mississippi’s MFA Program, and the first-ever poetry editor of SIERRA, the storytelling arm of The Sierra Club.
In this episode, Nezhukumatathil reads from her collection, describes animals who have shaped her understanding of the world, and discusses the power of wonder and astonishment to expand our empathy.
Aimee Nezhukumatathil‘s recommendations:
Nature on PBS
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
One Long River of Song by Brian Doyle
Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams
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