On Listening to Your Teacher Take Attendance

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2018

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Poem Analysis

Themes

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Related Poems

“Sea Church” (2018)

This poem also appears in Oceanic. Like “On Listening to Your Teacher Take Attendance,” it shows a sense of awe and appreciation regarding the sea and its creatures. Again, Nezhukumatathil shows the reverence the sea inspires, a devotion of the speaker to her mother, and the wonder at being part of the vastness of the world.

“Dear Amy Nehzooukammyatootill” (2011)

This is a “found,” poem, a poem which is made up of sentences and fragments taken from other sources. In this case, the poems are pieces of emails from high school students who draw conclusions about Nezhukumatathil’s work and personality. This poem, like “On Listening to Your Teacher Take Attendance” deals with people’s assumptions about identity as well as addresses the butchering of the poet’s name (as seen in the title).

“Touchpool” by Aimee Nezhukumatathil (2004)

This is a poem first published in Virginia Quarterly Review that later appeared in the collection At The Drive-In Volcano (2007). This poem is like “On Listening to Your Teacher Take Attendance” in its use of a sea creature—this time a baby sand shark—to convey an emotional state. Here, the speaker is an adult realizing that the relationship she is in will eventually end, stinging her like the shark’s rough skin.

Further Literary Resources

“World of Wonders: An Interview With Aimee Nezhukumatathil” by Ross Gay (2020)

This is an interview with poet Ross Gay about World of Wonders, the book of essays on the natural world. Gay and Nezhukumatathil are close friends, which shows in the interview. Gay describes the book as “kind of like Aimee,” who is “flabbergasted, gobsmacked, and astonished with glee by all kinds of creatures and phenomena.” The two discuss “family, racism, corpse flowers, singing with birds, teaching, and, of course, wonder.” Information from the interview, especially about Nezhukumatathil’s childhood experience and her love of her family, can be applied to “On Listening to Your Teacher Take Attendance.”

“A Poem About What Grounds You” by Pádraig Ó Tuama (2020)

Irish poet Ó Tuama analyzes the poem “On Listening to Your Teacher Take Attendance” for The On Being Project. He concentrates on the equanimity the speaker achieves by remembering the family trip to the sea. He suggests that “the wisdom of this poem is saying, ‘Hold something beautiful in your mind. Hold something that reminds you of who you are.’”

“Falling in Love with the World” by Shannon Nakai (2018)

This is a review of Oceanic (2018) for Tupelo Quarterly in which Nakai specifically analyzes “On Listening to Your Teacher Take Attendance,” remarking on its theme and use of alliteration. Nakai notes that overall, she finds the collection a “story of restoration, and the end goal is love.”

Interview with Aimee Nezhukumatathil by Kaveh Akbar (2015)

This interview was conducted by poet Kaveh Akbar before the publication of Oceanic (2018), however, in it, Nezhukumatathil discusses her childhood, her stint as a chemistry major, her love of science books, her concerns about racism, and her writing process, all of which apply to “On Listening to Your Teacher Take Attendance.”