And in that slowdown, you might think it’s a kind of love. You might think of a heartbeat- your own. Aimee Nezhukumatathil Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of World of Wonders, an illustrated essay collection published by Milkweed Editions in September 2020, as well as of four books of poetry, including, most recently, Oceanic, winner of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award. Its luminescence could very well be the spark that reminds us to make a most necessary turn- a shift and a swing and a switch- toward cherishing this magnificent and wondrous planet. Such a tiny light, for such a considerable task. Even in the strange and the unlovely, Nezhukumatathil finds beauty and kinship. Did you see that? A single firefly is, too.

Can you hear that? The cassowary is trying to tell us something. In that spark is a slowdown and tenderness. A single firefly might be the spark that sends us back to our grandmother’s backyard to listen for whip-poor-wills the spark that sends us back to splashing in an ice-cold creek bed, with our jeans rolled up to our knees, until we shudder and gasp, our toes fully wrinkled. Book: World of Wonders Author: Aimee Nezhukumatathil.

It might make me feel like I’m traveling again to a gathering of loved ones dining seaside on a Greek island, listening to cicada song and a light wind rustling the mimosa trees. And for those of you that would like to learn more about Aimee Nezhukumatathil, register here to hear her read from World of Wonders at Saint Mary’s College on March 11 at 7 p.m., followed by a Q&A session. Aimee Nezhukumatathil is an award winning poet and her latest publication, World Of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments is a debut work of nonfictiona collection of essays about the natural world, and the way its inhabitants can teach, support, and inspire us. With Ross Gay she co-wrote the chapbook of epistolary nature poems, Lace and Pyrite (2014).Nezhukumatathil's work has appeared in Poetry magazine, Ploughshares, FIELD, and American Poetry Review. “For me, what a single firefly can do is this: it can light a memory I thought was long lost in roadsides overrun with Queen Anne’s lace and goldenrod, a peach pie cooling in the window of a distant house. A book of illustrated nature essays, World of Wonder, is forthcoming from Milkweed.

Aimee nezhukumatathil world of wonder