Will I love World of Wonders?

There’s this rumor that poets look longer and harder at the ornaments of the world than do anyone else.  They keep looking, and looking, and looking, after most everyone else has long ago looked away, moved on. Here, in the wonderful world of poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s first book of nonfiction, whimsy and reverence twine like the DNA helices of the flora and fauna she examines. In her essay on the firefly, I adore the part when the insects “…lose their light rhythm for a few minutes after a single car’s headlights pass. Sometimes it takes hours for them to recalibrate… show more.

World of Wonders was my salve during the early months of the pandemic. In spring 2020, I was craving something light, beautiful, and engaging to read. During quarantine, my family, like many others, rediscovered the beauty in our gardens and our neighborhoods. Nezhukumatahil’s prose poetry encouraged an enlivening of the every day, and inspired a reconnection with nature in ways that made us feel less “quarantined” and more connected to the smaller beings that share and shape our world. World of Wonders is also an invitation to nostalgia— the author’s recollections of her own ‘wondrous’ childhood memories sparked my… show more.