Not too long after that we collaborated on a chapbook of epistolary poems about our gardens called Lace and Pyrite: Letters From Two Gardens (Organic Weapon Arts, 2014). In 2007 her second book, At the Drive-In Volcano, was published by Tupelo Press, and in 2011 we shared a book party at Cave Canem for her third book, Lucky Fish (Tupelo Press), and my second, Bringing the Shovel Down (University of Pittsburgh Press). (Credit: Caroline Beffa)Īimee and I became fast friends after that, writing (actual) letters, sharing work, the whole thing. Like I said: best reading ever.Īimee Nezhukumatathil, author of World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments, forthcoming from Milkweed Editions in September. Everyone in the Waldron theater in Bloomington, Indiana, sang Billy Fucking Ocean. I know, I know, there have been a lot of those. A couple of years later, spring 2007, Indiana Review editor Abdel Shakur and I invited Aimee, along with Patrick and Tyehimba and Aracelis Girmay, out to read at Indiana University, where I teach, for what was maybe-no, what was definitely-the best reading ever. Patrick had a stack of books with him-this was 2005, I think-and one of them was Aimee’s first book, Miracle Fruit (Tupelo Press, 2003).

I was introduced to Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s work on a long drive from New Jersey to Maine, while tagging along with my friend Patrick Rosal, who was joining Adrian Blevins, Tyehimba Jess, and Gibson Fay-LeBlanc for a reading for From the Fishouse, the wonderful online audio archive of emerging poets started by Camille T.

Aimee world of wonders