Aimee Nezhukumatathil is at work on a collection of food essays, forthcoming from Ecco. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller and Kirkus Prize finalist, WORLD OF WONDERS: IN PRAISE OF FIREFLIES, WHALE SHARKS, & OTHER ASTONISHMENTS (2020, Milkweed Editions), which was chosen as Barnes and Noble’s Book of the Year. She has four previous poetry collections and her most recent chapbook is LACE & PYRITE, a collaboration of epistolary garden poems with the poet Ross Gay. She is poetry editor for SIERRA magazine and professor of English at the University of Mississippi’s MFA program.
Aimee Nezhukumatathil

A Taste of Wonder

Mint
Can I find any lasting solace in the color green? —Naomi Shihab Nye, “Mint Snowball” YOU CAN SMELL IT before you spot it, one of the first fragrant greetings of spring. Continue reading
A Taste of Wonder

Maple Syrup
We prepare for the sweetness of a new season with actual sugar on our lips. Continue reading
A Taste of Wonder

Figs
Figs are actually inside-out flowers—hundreds of flowers trapped inside a casing. Continue reading
A Taste of Wonder

Dandelions
When the last snowmelt runs down the street and spring peepers have their song, I know the promise of warmth on my skin presses near. Stars! In the grass! Continue reading
A Taste of Wonder

Chocolate
“The plainest things, it seems to me, are filled with wonder.” —Lucille Clifton SOME PEOPLE are perfectly fine without it. My friend Ross jokes that he can go for months Continue reading
Poem
Nursery
In high school, boys hardly ever noticed me, and when they finally did, I could not imagine any of them a father. One called me the n-word when I was seven Continue reading
blog post

Aimee Nezhukumatathil Reflects on Five Years as Poetry Editor
“The land knows you, even when you are lost.” I’ve lost track of the times I’ve thought of this sentence from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass since I first became Orion’s poetry Continue reading
blog post

Five Poems to Celebrate National Poetry Month
When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. John Muir I write this at the end of what seems like Continue reading
blog post

Seven Poems for National Poetry Month
In honor of National Poetry Month (and Earth Day!), I’ve selected a poetry sampler that captures the range and push into the horizon of what I hope to bring to Orion’s Continue reading
audio
Ross Gay and Aimee Nezhukumatathil Read “Letters from Two Gardens”
Poets Ross Gay and Aimee Nezhukumatathil read from their poetry correspondence, “Letters from Two Gardens,” tracing the shape of a year as experienced through each of their gardens.