Today’s GalleyCrush is Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments, forthcoming from Milkweed Editions on August 11, 2020.
Perfect pitch: “From beloved, award-winning poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil comes a debut work of nonfiction—a collection of essays about the natural world, and the way its inhabitants can teach, support, and inspire us.”
Big blurb: “[World of Wonders] walks. It sprints. It leaps. Most importantly, the book lingers in a world where power, people, and the literal outside wrestle painfully, beautifully.” —Kiese Laymon
First lines: “A catalpa can give two brown girls in western Kansas a green umbrella from the sun. Don’t get too dark, too dark, our mother would remind us as we ambled out into the relentless midwestern light.”
Book notes: Hardcover, essays, 184 pages.
Author bio: Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Oceanic, winner of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award. She is the poetry editor of Orion magazine, and teaches in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program.
