NPM 2015 - April 2 - Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Today's poet is Aimee Nezhukumatathil (born in Chicago in 1974). Her  bio says:

Born in 1974 in Chicago to a Filipina mother and Malayali Indian father, Aimee Nezhukumatathil is known for writing poems that sit at the intersection of three cultures: Filipino, Indian, and American. She received her BA in English and MFA in poetry and creative nonfiction from Ohio State University in Columbus.

...She teaches creative writing and environmental literature at State University of New York–Fredonia, where she was named the SUNY–Fredonia William T. Hagan Young Scholar.

And now to one of her poems. I first read this poem in 2007 or 2008 and was very amused because my friend and I, as 9-11 year olds, used to delight in spelling out and saying the word - pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis - no fear of long words for us! But I was also mildly amused by the fact that the poem is about a fear of long almost unpronounceable words, kinda like the poet's last name! ;-)

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

—The fear of long words

by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

On the first day of classes, I secretly beg

my students Don’t be afraid of me. I know

my last name on your semester schedule

is chopped off or probably misspelled—

or both. I can’t help it. I know the panic

of too many consonants rubbed up

against each other, no room for vowels

to fan some air into the room of a box

marked Instructor. You want something

to startle you? Try tapping the ball

of roots of a potted tomato plant

into your cupped hand one spring, only

to find a small black toad who kicks

and blinks his cold eye at you,

the sun, a gnat. Be afraid of the x-rays

for your teeth or lung. Pray for no

dark spots. You may have

pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis:

coal lung. Be afraid of money spiders tiptoeing

across your face while you sleep on a sweet, fat couch.

But don’t be afraid of me, my last name, what language

I speak or what accent dulls itself on my molars.

I will tell jokes, help you see the gleam

of the beak of a mohawked cockatiel. I will

lecture on luminescent sweeps of ocean, full of tiny

dinoflagellates oozing green light when disturbed.

I promise dark gatherings of toadfish and comical shrimp

just when you think you are alone, hoping to stay somehow afloat.

You can read some more of her poems at her website here and an interview with her here.