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The Meter Reader: Aimee Nezhukumatathil encompasses "every shade of blue" in聽Oceanic

Amie Whittemore

Reviewed:听翱肠别补苍颈肠听by Aimee Nezhukumatathil (Copper Canyon Press, 2018).

滨苍听翱肠别补苍颈肠听(Copper Canyon Press, 2018), her fourth poetry collection, Aimee Nezhukumatathil draws on the title word in a number of waves (pun intended): in one sense, these poems聽are聽oceanic, in that images borrowed from the sea鈥檚 riches swim through them (the puns can鈥檛 stop, won鈥檛 stop): whale sharks, coral, penguins, kelp and scallops all inhabit these poems. It is the other sense of oceanic鈥攖hat of vastness or greatness鈥攖hat Nezhukumatathil probes and pushes in these poems: what is the seed of greatness? How can we make our hearts vaster?

The word 鈥渙ceanic鈥� occurs three times in the collection, and each use complicates Nezhukumatathil鈥檚 thematic concerns. The first occurrence appears in the poem 鈥淲hen You Select the Daughter Card,鈥� where Nezhukumatathil envisions a tarot deck featuring a Daughter card:

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.

Here the Daughter figure inhabits both definitions of 鈥渙ceanic:鈥� she is of the ocean, but also vast鈥攕he is the harmony between sea and earth; 鈥渢he power flowing / through the Daughter is oceanic,鈥� as she 鈥渟ymbolizes / a knowledge of the mysteries of family found / inside a mollusk.鈥� To be oceanic is thus to be familial, is to connect and empower rather than diminish and constrict.

The second occurrence appears in 鈥淚nvitation,鈥� in which the speaker of the poem offers a heartfelt and playful invitation to 鈥渃ome in, come in鈥攖he water鈥檚 fine! You can鈥檛 get lost here.鈥� In this opening riddle, Nezhukumatathil suggests 鈥渉ere鈥� is not simply the ocean, but our entire earth-home: she invites us not only to look up, but also to look down, around, to realize 鈥渘arwhals spin upside down while their singular tooth needles / you like a compass pointed toward home鈥濃�攚hich is this here, this everywhere.聽 In the poem鈥檚 final stanza, the speaker hopes 鈥測ou see / the dark sky as oceanic, boundless, limitless鈥攍ike all / the shades of blue.鈥� Again, Nezhukumatathil celebrates and draws attention to how vastness is not the same as distance鈥攊t is through the enormity and variety of life that we find connections; she accomplishes this both through the use of 鈥渙ceanic鈥� and through the line break: 鈥渓ike all鈥� encompasses all life as much as every shade of blue.

鈥淥ceanic鈥� shows up a third time in 鈥淔irst Time on the Funicular,鈥� in which the speaker and her beloved enjoy a getaway in Monte San Salvatore, Switzerland. Here, the mountain is made of 鈥渙ceanic quartz鈥� and at its peak is a 鈥渓ightning museum // where you can bolt a bright coin of knowledge / into your neck.鈥� Like ocean, quartz is abundant鈥斺�攁nd varied: it can manifest as purple amethyst or in its pure form, be entirely transparent; furthermore, ancient Greeks and Romans thought the stone to be a form of ice鈥攁 solid bit of ocean itself. This wedding of rock to water, of mountain to ocean depth is another cue for us to commend the unfathomably complex world we inhabit as well as the complexity of our own lives; the speaker in the poem almost feels sheepish for drinking wine 鈥渙ver a white tablecloth before noon鈥� before 鈥渟liding聽up聽a mountain to see about lightning.鈥� There鈥檚 something risky, nearly perverse, and certainly radical in this kind of open pleasure in life鈥檚 gifts: while so much of our energy can be, and often is, consumed by political outrage and fear, by all sorts of existential anxieties, isn鈥檛 it audacious to seek lightning鈥攁nd to do so with the one you love, the one with whom you share 鈥渢he spark / the crackle, the brilliant strike between us?鈥澛�翱肠别补苍颈肠听makes this bold move, to love and revel, and emboldens its readers to do so too.

While much of this collection resides in a revelatory and loving tone, while it abides often in sweetness, Nezhukumatathil鈥檚 precision of language, her capacious, compassionate voice allows her to move with liquid ease (third pun鈥檚 a charm) from a meditation on wildly painted fingernails (鈥淚n Praise of My Manicure鈥�) to a solemn study on the lives of adolescent prostitutes in 鈥淭wo Moths.鈥� Her refusal to slide these poems into the slender arms of a 鈥減roject book鈥� is why this project succeeds: to be oceanic is to carry聽everything鈥攚hales as well as 鈥渢heir stomachs clogged full / of plastic and car parts鈥� (鈥淢r. Cass and the Crustaceans鈥�), Psyche and Cupid reimagined, The Pepper King, starfish dismantling their arms, even found poems reviewing the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall. The poems also manifest vastness formally, as Nezhukumatathil writes in both free verse and forms, such as a ghazal and several haibuns. This book聽颈蝉听oceanic in subject, in approach, in temperament; it is determined to make a whale-song of your heart.