Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s “Night Owl” Illuminates the Dark

Off Square Books to host book launch for Night Owl on Tuesday, March 24, 2026 at 5:30 pm

While much of Oxford heads inside and winds down at night, award-winning poet and University of Mississippi professor Aimee Nezhukumatathil awakens readers to the often-overlooked magic of nighttime in her forthcoming book Night Owl.

Night Owl uncovers what night can look and feel like if one takes the time to truly get to know it. And what better guide for such exploration than Oxford’s own Aimee Nezhukumatathil? In addition to bringing her students outdoors for writing exercises and much-needed breaths of fresh air during busy semesters, Nezhukumatathil gives firefly tours for Mississippi State Parks. Set to release at the end of the month, Night Owl is her fifth book of poetry.

Nezhukumatathil’s most recently published books include two illustrated essay collections, Bite by Bite and World of Wonders, the latter of which spent seven weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list and was selected as UM’s 2021 Common Read, among other distinctions. But for readers who first discovered Nezhukumatathil through her previous books of poetry—Oceanic, Lucky Fish, At the Drive-in Volcano, and Miracle Fruit—Night Owl marks her much-anticipated return to her home genre.

From Night Owl’s very first page, Nezhukumatathil casts nighttime in a new and increasingly enticing light. Inviting readers to sit with her and listen to the dark rather than slink back indoors with everyone else, Nezhukumatathil guides us through nights illuminated by backyard moon gardens, Greenland midnight sun, Mississippi fireflies, and fluorescent roller rinks. “I wanted to showcase that night is more than one hour,” she shares, “or one time you glance outside.”

Night Owl is more than a mere celebration: the book urges us to move beyond our existing understanding of night and discover what we may so easily overlook at the end of each day. “It was only when pulling together these poems that I realized how much attention I have always paid to the night,” Nezhukumatathil says. “I feel like things are softer for me at night. Things aren’t under the glare of deadline, deadline, hustle, hustle. The world, the outdoors soften around me as well.”

Night Owl also challenges popular associations of night as a time only of darkness and danger, which prevents some from fully enjoying the outdoors after sunset. “In Western literature, there’s a whole genre of scary movies and scary books—bad things happening at night,” Nezhukumatathil explains. “And for sure, that stuff happens. But a lot of good happens at night as well.” In this powerful reversal, Night Owl extends an invitation to slow down, stand still, experience the same world in a new way—and find new ways to care for it as well. Thinking of fireflies, Nezhukumatathil reminds us, “What we do [in the daytime] can affect the things that we love outdoors at night, too.”

While Night Owl is Nezhukumatathil’s first themed poetry collection, woven together by its focus on night, the unmistakable current of love that courses through her previous books continues to serve as Night Owl’s North Star. “I hope it’s evident in every page of this book, that, yes, I happen to be a poet, and yes, I happen to be a writer,” Nezhukumatathil shares, “but at my heart, I am a mother, I’m a wife, I’m a daughter first.” With Night Owl, Nezhukumatathil encourages us not only to look at the natural world with more care, but also to extend this same renewed attention to the people who make up our families and communities.

Just as Night Owl offers more than celebration, Nezhukumatathil’s nocturnes are more than poems of night: they’re poems of love. Even poems labeled as “invectives” come from a place of genuine care and investment and are expertly nestled right beside poems more overtly about Nezhukumatathil’s love for her family, friends, and the world. “I think anybody who knows me for even five seconds knows how fiercely I love and how fiercely I rage. There’s just no in-between. I liken that to the Filipino side of me,” she says. “It’s like that Tagalog word I love, nakakagigil—loving something so much, it’s almost painful!”

A poet of Filipina and South Asian heritage, Nezhukumatathil’s work simultaneously investigates Asian American identity and experience alongside her exploration of the natural world. In a literary landscape where Asian American stories are often associated with experiences of trauma, struggle, and complicated baggage, Nezhukumatathil asks, “Why should we only equate Asian Americanness with tragedy? Books that capture grief and tragedy are important. So are books of love and togetherness. Especially now.”

What perhaps strikes me most about Night Owl is Nezhukumatathil’s honesty and vulnerability, how clearly and unabashedly her love—in all its colors and forms—comes into view. As someone who admittedly doesn’t feel as at home in the night, whether literal or emotional, I find that Nezhukumatathil’s poems offer an answer, that they cut through what can seem like the endless dark of our contemporary moment. In Nezhukumatathil’s words, “This book is about staying, really. Staying in the night, and taking fear and anger and rage and facing it head-on.” And isn’t this something we all hope to learn to do?

The book launch for Night Owl, Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s brilliant fifth book of poetry, will be hosted at Off Square Books on Tuesday, March 24 at 5:30 pm. This celebration also kicks off the 32nd Oxford Conference of the Book, an annual gathering of booklovers organized by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. Copies of Night Owl are available for preorder on the Square Books website and can be purchased at the upcoming book launch.

This article is from The Local Voice #482 – March 19-April 2, 2026. Access the digital edition here.