Asian-American poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil will read from her works on Thursday, April 16, at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College.
Nezhukumatathil’s reading, part of the college’s Creative Writer’s Speaker Series, begins at 6 p.m. in the Larry and Katherine Smith Chapel. An author reception will be held at 4 p.m.; both are free and open to the public.
Nezhukumatathil regularly draws upon her Filipino and Malayali background to lend unique perspective to her writing. Her first book, “Miracle Fruit,” won the Foreword Magazine Poetry Book of the Year Award and was chosen by poet Gregory Orr for the Tupelo Press First Book Prize. “Miracle Fruit” also was a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Prize and the Asian American Literary Award in poetry. Her second collection of poems, “At the Drive-In Volcano,” was released in 2007.
Most recently, Nezhukumatathil’s poem “Love in the Orangery” won a 2009 Pushcart Prize. She teaches creative writing and environmental literature at SUNY Fredonia.
Penn State Behrend’s annual Creative Writer’s Speaker Series is produced by the college’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences with support from the Clarence A. and Eugenie Baumann Smith Fund. The final speaker in the spring series will be fiction writer Michael Czyzniejewski on Thursday, April 23.
For additional information about the Creative Writer’s Speaker Series or Nezhukumatathil’s appearance, phone series director George Looney, associate professor of English and creative writing, at (814) 898-6281.