Oceanic
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About this ebook
"Nezhukumatathil’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
“Cultural strands are woven into the DNA of her strange, lush... poems. Aphorisms...from another dimension.” —The New York Times
“With 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
“How wonderful to watch a writer who was already among the best young poets get even better!” —Terrance Hayes
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.
From “Starfish and Coffee”:
And that’s how you feel after tumbling
like sea stars on the ocean floor over each other.
A night where it doesn’t matter
which are arms or which are legs
or what radiates and how—
only your centers stuck together.
Aimee 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.
Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of the New York Times bestselling illustrated collection of nature essays World of Wonders, chosen as Barnes & Noble’s Book of the Year and as a finalist for the Kirkus Prize. She has published four award-winning poetry collections and is the poetry editor for Sierra magazine, the storytelling branch of the Sierra Club. She lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with her family and is a professor of English and creative writing in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program.
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Book preview
Oceanic - Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Self-Portrait as Scallop
When I Am Six
CHICAGO
My mother waters the tomato & pepper plants. I steal drinks from the penny-taste of the garden hose. It is my favorite drink. I am six & think to cross the street by myself from time to time, but never do. I am six, my sister is five, & we hide inside clothing racks at the store just to feel the black-sick fill our round bellies when we get lost, lost, lost from our mother. I am six & I am laughing with a mouthful of cashews. I think nuts is the funniest word I have ever heard. I am six & I break all my mother’s lipsticks & glue them together & put them back in her bathroom drawer. She’ll never notice. Sometimes I find sad envelopes, the ones with red and blue stripes, meaning these envelopes fly, meaning thin feathers, meaning bird with a little worm in the beak. Envelopes from her father, I think—she snatches them from my hand & says, No, no, where did you get these? Now put them back.
On Listening to Your Teacher Take Attendance
Breathe deep even if it means you wrinkle
your nose from the fake-lemon antiseptic
of the mopped floors and wiped-down
doorknobs. The freshly soaped necks
and armpits. Your teacher means well,
even if he butchers your name like
he has a bloody sausage casing stuck
between his teeth, handprints
on his white, sloppy apron. And when
everyone turns around to check out
your face, no need to flush red and warm.
Just picture all the eyes as if your classroom
is one big scallop with its dozens of icy blues
and you will remember that winter your family
took you to the China Sea and you sank
your face in it to gaze at baby clams and sea stars
the size of your outstretched hand. And when
all those necks start to crane, try not to forget
someone once lathered their bodies, once patted them
dry with a fluffy towel after a bath, set out their clothes
for the first day of school. Think of their pencil cases
from third grade, full of sharp pencils, a pink pearl eraser.
Think of their handheld pencil sharpener and its tiny blade.
The Origin of Feathers on My Windshield
The pelicans dip their brilliant sloppy bills
into their tired shoulders and there is a certain bridge
in Florida where you have to be careful not to hit them
as they fly across windshields. I lost the only picture
of me taken by a man who used to be the boy I loved
when I was fifteen. When this man last visited me,
all the pretty rivers in town were tannin-stained
from a certain oak-and-chestnut mess. We walked
carefully through glass galleries and a little bakery
that sold a single gold-dipped strawberry. I was the girl
whose hands gave up chewing through a dahlia long ago.
Even he has crawled too far across soil to turn back now.
And truth be told, so have I. I am like a man who prefers
the taste of his own tongue instead of the lips of summer.
My shadow and the shadow of sunflowers are the same.
Sea Church
Give me a church
made entirely of salt.
Let the walls hiss
and smoke when
I return to