Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Aimee Nezhukumatathil is a poet, a creative nonfiction writer, and a University of Mississippi professor who specializes in environmental writing. She is known for work that highlights the connection between humanity and the natural world. Nezhukumatathil says of this recurring theme in both her poetry and essays, “This fascination and love of the environment and various landscapes has been a North Star for everything I write, and I don’t expect that changing any time soon.”

Born in Chicago to a Filipina mother and a South Indian father, Nezhukumatathil discovered her passion for writing while studying at The Ohio State University (OSU). She recalls coming across the poem “Mint Snowball” by Naomi Shihab Nye in her junior year, which inspired her to study poetry and prose writing. Nezhukumatathil graduated with a BA in English from OSU, where she also received her MFA in poetry and creative nonfiction. She has said of poetry that it “offers an attention to the world, to beauty, and to love. I think that’s a form of activism: inviting people in this hurting world to see animals and nature and human relationships differently, and to take refuge in beauty.”

After obtaining her graduate degree, Nezhukumatathil accepted the Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellowship at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She then spent her early career teaching at SUNY-Fredonia in western New York. In 2016 she was selected as the John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi (UM). After her residency, she was offered—and accepted—a professor of English position at UM, where she teaches environmental literature and poetry writing. In 2023 she won the University of Mississippi’s Distinguished Research and Creative Achievement Award, the first woman of color to receive it.

Nezhukumatathil is the author of several bestselling books of poetry and essays. Notably, her collection of nature essays and illustrations, World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, & Other Astonishments (2020), was named the 2020 Barnes & Noble Book of the Year, an NPR Best Book of 2020, and a Kirkus Prize Finalist for Nonfiction. Her second collection of essays, Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees, followed in 2024. Her books of poetry include Oceanic (2018), Lucky Fish (2011), At the Drive-In Volcano (2007), and Miracle Fruit (2003). Her most recent book of poetry is Night Owl, published by HarperCollins in 2026. In 2021 she coauthored the chapbook Lace & Pyrite: Letters from Two Gardens with poet Ross Gay. She has served as poetry editor for Orion magazine and for the Sierra Club’s Sierra magazine for a combined decade, and she has served as a contributing editor or advisory board member for several literary magazines, including Orion and Poets & Writers.

Throughout her career, Nezhukumatathil has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Pushcart Prize, and a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Most recently, she was selected as a 2025 United States Artists fellow and a recipient of the Pepe Marcos-Iga Award for Innovation in Environmental Education.

Nezhukumatathil lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with her husband, Dustin Parsons, and two children.