Night Owl

Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the New York Times bestselling author of two illustrated collections of essays: Bite by Bite and World of Wonders, chosen as Barnes & Noble’s Book of the Year and as a finalist for the Kirkus Prize. She has published four award-winning poetry collections and spent a decade serving as the poetry editor for environmental magazines, first for Orion and then Sierra. A professor of English and creative writing for more than twenty-five years, she gives firefly tours for Mississippi State Parks and lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with her family.

“With its graceful arc marked by the phases of the night, Night Owl is meticulously artful, with a steadfast insistence on tenderness and love. Nezhukumatathil’s poetics are characterized by her rejection of cynicism. In this resplendent collection, she enacts the truth that to see and express beauty in these times is its own form of resistance.” — Diane Seuss, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award“The arrival of a new poetry collection from Nezhukumatathil calls for confetti . . . Delving into joy, love, motherhood, nature, and time, this transportive work takes readers to Arches National Park, the Jardin du Palais-Royal, an airport gate, and the ocean floor. How I hope you travel through these stirring poems.” — BookRiot, A Best Book of 2026“What happens when you combine a love poet and a poet with an almost encyclopedic knowledge of flora and fauna both above and below sea level? You get Aimee Nezhukumatathil and her new collection . . . Night Owl is an examination of, well, everything that moves seamlessly between subjects . . . Night Owl is at once educational and conversational, and packs a series of powerful emotional punches . . . Boy, are these poems good. This is one that will keep you awake well into the wee hours, but mainly because you want to keep reading.” — BookPage (starred review)“Nezhukumatathil writes about the natural world with a glorious curiosity and grace.” — The Orange County Register“Aimee Nezhukumatathil is one of our great nature poets, and reading her work always makes me feel more connected to the outside world in all its textures. (Crucially, she’s also very funny.) Night Owl is a collection of nocturnes that ‘plumb the depths of nighttime.’ I have no doubt that it will be a beacon in the dark.” — Lit Hub ("Most Anticipated Books of 2026")“Beautiful.” — Garden & Gun (A Most Anticipated Book of 2026)“Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s newest collection delivers joy and wonder, just as you would expect, although this time they are found in the night. . . You, too, Nezhukumatathil guides us, can learn to love the dark.” — Lit Hub (“Most Anticipated Poetry of 2026)“In Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s fifth poetry collection, she explores magic, love, and nature that bloom in the dark hours of the night. She uses the transformative nature of night to shift our perspective on interconnectivity and blurs the borders between us and the surrounding world. Night Owl doesn’t shy away from the noises or silences of the dark and uses them to shine light on the love in revolutionary connection.” — Electric Literature“Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s new poetry collection, Night Owl, extends her project of meditating on the remarkable facets of nature . . . Nothing is too small to escape Nezhukumatathil’s sharp gaze . . . While Nezhukumatathil attends to the non-human natural world in her lines, she also considers motherhood, travel, childhood memories—whatever provokes feelings of wonder and/or complication.” — Lit Hub