Oceanic - Aimee Nezhukumatathil

\n \nNezhukumatathil's poems contain elegant twists of a very sharp knife. She writes about the natural world and how we live in it, filling each poem, each page with a true sense of wonder. --Roxane Gay\n \nCultural strands are woven into the DNA of her strange, lush... poems. Aphorisms...from another dimension. --The New York Times\n \nWith unparalleled ease, she's able to weave each intriguing detail into a nuanced, thought-provoking poem that also reads like a startling modern-day fable. --The Poetry Foundation\n \nHow wonderful to watch a writer who was already among the best young poets get even better --Terrance Hayes\n \nWith 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.\n \nFrom Starfish and Coffee \n \nAnd that's how you feel after tumbling \nlike sea stars on the ocean floor over each other. \nA night where it doesn't matter \nwhich are arms or which are legs \nor what radiates and how-- \nonly your centers stuck together.\n \nAimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of four collections of poetry. Recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and the prestigious Eric Hoffer Grand Prize, Nezhukumatathil teaches creative writing and environmental literature in the MFA program at the University of Mississippi.\n