Please note: This Convocation was cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. There is no video recording available. We hope to reschedule Aimee during Fall 2022.
Aimee Nezhukumatathil is an award-winning poet who teaches environmental literature and poetry writing in the MFA program at the University of Mississippi. In 2014 she became one of the country’s youngest poets to achieve the rank of full Professor of English. As someone who set out on a path to becoming a biologist before turning to a career in creative writing, one of the hallmarks of her research-based poetry is finding metaphors in the curious phenomena of the natural world. She also draws upon her Filipina and Malayali Indian background to give her perspective on love, loss, and land. Her work has been used not only in contemporary poetry classes, but also in curriculum for environmental studies, women’s studies, and Asian-American literature classes. Sierra magazine, the story-telling arm of The Sierra Club, named her the first-ever poetry editor of the magazine in 2021. In addition to four previous poetry collections, Nezhukumatathil is the author of the New York Times best-selling illustrated collection of nature essays, World Of Wonders: In Praise Of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, & Other Astonishments, which was chosen as Barnes and Noble’s 2020 Book of the Year.