Poetry professor Nezhukumatathil named NEA Fellow

FREDONIA, N.Y. — January 21, 2009 — Aimee Nezhukumatathil, associate professor of English at SUNY Fredonia and author of two highly acclaimed collections of poetry, has been named a 2009 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Fellow.

Nezhukumatathil earned one of just 42 Literature Fellowships for poetry — competing against roughly 1,700 applicants — that were awarded by the NEA, the largest financial supporter of the arts in the United States. That designation, which provides $25,000 allocations to each recipient, is designed to encourage the creation of new works by allowing writers the time and means to write. The NEA’s selection process is based on 10 poems and a brief statement by the author.

Nezhukumatathil’s poetry is characterized by lush descriptions of landscapes and exotic foods, while her Filipino and South Indian backgrounds foster a unique perspective on the land, as well as on love and loss.

“Nature is my biggest inspiration, my muse if you will – but I don’t always write about it. Family, love and desire all play an important role in the basic subjects of my work. Mother Nature is the greatest poet of all. I just take my cues from her,” she explained. “There’s no way I could ever top the poems she gives us every single day. Just step outside and look around.”

A recent sabbatical enabled her to pursue a life-long dream and research project on whale sharks at the Georgia Aquarium, where she was able to swim among 6,000 fish, including whale sharks. She is in the final editing phase on a new manuscript of poems and has also begun work on an environmental book for children about the whale shark and a series of young adult poems. She resumes teaching duties at SUNY Fredonia in the spring term.

“As a new mother, so much of my writing is done in my head and in the wee hours of the morning or in small bites of time,” she said. “The NEA (Fellowship) allows me freedom and, more importantly, time – to work on what will be my fourth collection of poems.”

A native of Chicago, Nezhukumatathil attended Gowanda Junior-Senior High School and earned a bachelor’s degree in English and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Poetry and Creative Non-Fiction, both from Ohio State University. She served one year as the Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was a visiting writer at several schools, including Arizona State University, Indiana University and New York University. At SUNY Fredonia, she teaches creative writing and environmental literature.

Her first published book, “Miracle Fruit,” was a multiple-award winner in 2003. It was named ForeWord magazine’s Poetry Book of the Year, won the Tupelo Press First Book Prize, co-won the Global Filipino Literary Award, and finished as a finalist for The Glasgow Prize and the Asian American Literary Award in poetry. Her book, “At the Drive-In Volcano,” released in 2007, won the Balcones Prize, an honor awarded each year for the most outstanding book of poetry. Both collections are in use in high schools and colleges across the nation. Anthologies published by HarperCollins, W.W. Norton and Penguin have included her poems.

Nezhukumatathil was the 2005 recipient of the SUNY Fredonia Hagan Young Scholar Award, which recognizes an individual who has made outstanding achievements in research or creativity. She is the first member of the Department of English to earn this honor. She also holds two SUNY-wide honors, the Drescher Award and Chancellor’s Award for Scholarship and Creative Activities, for excellence in her record of publications, art production and performance.

She will give readings of her own poems at Penn State’s Erie, Pa. campus on April 16 as well as in Chicago and Kansas City on dates to be determined during the spring semester.