Poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil reading for Wednesday event

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Poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil will visit campus and read selections of her work as part of the visiting writer’s series hosted by the College of Humanities and Social Behavioral Sciences.

Professor of English language and literature, Jeffrey Bean’s ENG 492: Advanced Poetry Writing course is studying Nezhukumatahil’s first book “Miracle Fruit.”

“It’s a nice, well-rounded collection,” Bean said, “(including) things from the larger world.”

Nezhukumatathil will read at 8 p.m.today in the Charles V. Park Library Baber room.

Nezhukumatathil’s work encompasses personal experiences, quotes from articles and signs from her travels, along with a humorous tone.

She is the author of three award-winning poetry collections: “Lucky Fish,” “At The Drive-In Volcano” and “Miracle Fruit.”

She has been awarded the gold medal in poetry from the Independent Publisher Book Awards, the Eric Hoffer Grand Prize for Independent books, the Balcones Prize, the Tupelo Press Prize, ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Award, the Global Filipino Award and has been a finalist for the Glasgow Prize and the Asian American Literary Award.

“She alludes to a wide variety of texts and different topics in her work,” Bean said.

Bean said her work is a good model of writing from personal experiences, by being accessible, while providing striking sensory images.

Robert Fanning, professor of English language and literature, said the goal of CHSBS bringing visiting writers is to bring nationally prominent writers of fiction and poetry to CMU to share their creative work.

This gives students and community members a chance to meet writers, hear their work and shake their hand, he said.

“Aimee Nezhukumatathil is funny, engaging, fierce and serious all at once,” Fanning said. “Her poems are lucid and lustrous, humorous, clear and emotionally resonant. She is witty and intellectual.”

Nezhukumatathil loves nature and teaches environmental literature, which manifests in her poems, Fanning said.

“Her poems are filled with great stuff about our globe — it’s exotic foods, flora and fauna, culture, the environment, but also the stuff of her own world, including poems about childbirth, loss and love,” Fanning said.

Scientific facts make their way into some of her poems and have shown to inspire her to write them, Bean said.

“Aimee Nezhukumatathil gives the kind of reading you don’t forget easily. She’s inspiring and powerful,” Fanning said. “She is one of the important poets of her generation. It is a great opportunity for our CMU community to hear an award-winning, nationally prominent poet.”