A review by ceallaighsbooks
Lucky Fish by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

“I am a lucky fish. The kind that curls up red
and flimsy in your hand. And the broken center
of it is a spiderweb, threaded through a chico tree
to catch bats.

…When I hear his name,

I put my hand over my heart when no one
is looking. I want to shield my heart
from that familiar ache, save it, and I do—
with my little sorry and broken bones.”

— from “FOOSH”

TITLE—Lucky Fish
AUTHOR—Aimee Nezhukumatathil
PUBLISHED—2011
PUBLISHER—Tupelo Press

GENRE—poetry
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—memory, food & cooking, wisdom in Nature, love & family, diaspora (esp Indian & Filipino) experiences, motherhood, non-humans as teachers, beauty & comfort as unexpected subversions, travel & cultural displacement, marginalization in western nations, food as spiritual nourishment & identity affirmation, Florida, weather, fruit trees, whispered legends & mythology

“Before a globe is pressed into a sphere,
the shape of the paper is an asterisk.

…I tried to pinch the widest part

of the Pacific Ocean, the distance between me
and India, me and the Philippines. The space

between the shorelines was too wide. My hand
was always empty when it came to land, to knowing

where is home. I dip my hands in the sea. I net
nothing but seaweed and a single, dizzy smelt.”

— from “A GLOBE IS JUST AN ASTERISK AND EVERY HOME SHOULD HAVE AN ASTERISK”

My thoughts:
Aimee Nezhukumatathil has been one of my alltime favorite poets since I first read her work in a college poetry class taught by the pulitzer-prize winning poet Gregory Pardlo. I love how she plays with form and language and how different each of her poems is from the next. I love how you can read any of her poems a dozen different times and each time it will look a little different, its shape and meaning changing the way light changes depending on the time of day or where it touches down to the earth or water. Reading her poems is like looking at a stereogram, or through a screened door, or through rain on a window.

My especial favorites on this reading were “BAKED GOODS”, “ARE ALL THE BREAK-UPS IN YOUR POEMS REAL?”, “THE GHOST-FISH POSTCARDS”, and “ECLIPSE”. Diving right in to a reread of my favorite of her collections—AT THE DRIVE-IN VOLCANO—next.

“I loved you dark & late. The crocus have found ways to push up & say this too. The ribbon of my arm’s length cannot reach you, & truth be told, should not. You are not the extra rain that floods out worm & bird from the new nests. You are the rain that arrived like a telegraph, too late, too late.” — from “THE GHOST-FISH POSTCARDS”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

CW // childbirth (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Further Reading—
  • AT THE DRIVE-IN VOLCANO, by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
  • NIGHT IS A SHARKSKIN DRUM, by Haunani-Kay Trask
  • ASK THE BRINDLED, by No’u Revilla—TBR
  • A SMALL PLACE, by Jamaica Kincaid
  • AT THE BOTTOM OF THE RIVER, by Jamaica Kincaid
  • EVERYONE KNOWS I AM A HAUNTING, by Shivanee Ramlochan
  • GARDENING IN THE TROPICS, by Olive Senior
  • HURRICANE WATCH, by Olive Senior—TBR