Balcones Prize Winner 2007 

Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s At the Drive-In Volcano won the 2007 Balcones Prize.

Nezhukumatathil was born in Chicago to a Filipina mother and a South Indian father. She attended The Ohio State University, where she received her B.A. in English and her M.F.A. in poetry and creative non-fiction. She was the 2000-01 Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing at UW-Madison and is now associate professor of English at State University of New York-Fredonia, where she teaches creative writing and environmental literature.

Aimee Nezhukumatathil on the web:

Website: http://aimeenez.net/home.html
Blog: http://aimeenez.blogspot.com
About At the Drive-In Volcano
About Tupelo Press: https://www.tupelopress.org

By the Light of a Single Worm

• Video – Nezhukumatathil reads at Austin Community College, Fall 2008:
   


• Text: First published in Virginia Quarterly, Winter 2004


• Discussion – Nezhukumatathil shares her thoughts on using poetry to explore the connection between human life and the natural world:
  
   

After Challenging Jennifer Lee to a Fight

• Audio & Text: Garrison Keillor reads the poem on Writer’s Almanac, Oct. 2007


• Discussion – Nezhukumatathil discusses the role identity plays in her poetry:
   

Nature

• The Poet Speaks:
  
   
• By the Light of a Single Worm
  
   
• Text 


• First Anniversary, with Monkeys
  • Text

Identity

• The Poet Speaks:
  
  


• After Challenging Jennifer Lee to a Fight
• Audio & Text


• Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia
• Audio & Text  

Influences

• The Poet Speaks:
  
  


• Influential poets cited by Nezhukumatathil include:


• Pablo Neruda

• Fatima Lim-Wilson

• Naomi Shihab Nye

• Rita Dove

• Robert Bly
  

When Aimee Nezhukumatathil visited the ACC campus, she led a workshop with creative writing students based on the following exercise.  We're grateful for her permission to share the exercise here.

First, read the poem "Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia."
(http://www.slate.com/id/2094134/)

Next, explore the Phobia List and, from their extensive collection, choose a phobia that intrigues or inspires or terrifies you, perhaps one you aren't familiar with.

Now try your hand at writing a persona poem from the vantage point of someone who has that phobia.  For example: write in the voice of someone who suffers from photophobia, the fear of light. You can take it a step further by placing your persona in a situation where there's bound to be a natural tension.  For example, imagine what would happen if someone with photophobia attended a fireworks show or a carnival, or happened to see a shooting star?

Alternately, you can simply write about the phobia itself, as Nezhukumatathil did in "Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia." Think of how Nezhukumatathil relates the fear of long words to her own name. Imagine what metaphors your chosen phobia might inspire.  And what universal truths can be learned from examining a particular phobia in this way?

2006 Balcones Creative Writing Center Award Winner

Lorna Dee Cervantes