Oceanic

I’ve been trained

to look up and up all my life, no matter the rumble on earth

but I’ve learned it’s okay to glance down once in a while into the sea.

So many lessons bubble up if you just know where to look.

So much of this collection of poetry by Aimee Nezhukumatathil felt like taking a breath. An exhale. With so many references to the natural world and the intertwining of mantras, I felt a calming sensation as I read most of the poems. The line I highlighted above demonstrates just that for me. Water is one of my favorite calming elements in this world, perhaps it is because I’m a Cancer, so this line really stuck out to me. There is so much clarity in just staring at the endlessness of the deep blue. So many lessons bubble up if you just know where to look. There is always a lesson to be learned from even the hardest situations.

No one seems to realize I am a star

Even just the formation of each poem is intriguing. Some are right aligned, others left, certain poems are strategically space and others columned. There is no set formation, she includes them all. It felt so free and there’s nothing I appreciate more than unrestricted poetry.

Another aspect of Aimee’s poetry I really appreciated was her imagery and comparisons in lines such as:

I blush quicker than a school of blue jack mackerel arranging itself into an orb of dazzle to avoid nips and gulps from the dolphins who’ve been silently trailing them, waiting for them to relax.

and

you are an open drawer of cutlery

and

She is sometimes mistaken for mermaid, but she can also walk quiet on the shore, symbolizing a harmony between earth and the dazzle of the sea.

One of my favorite poems out of the collection was The Body. I loved how the poet starts off by describing the sea stars ripping off their own arms and then dives into why she would want to rip off her limbs. It felt very relatable. The comparisons in these poems were just so vivid and transparent. I could not get enough of all of the imagery.

The arms just walk away from the body: the pull, the pull—what a stroll—until the arms detach entirely and spill their creamy innards onto the ocean floor.