She currently serves as poetry editor of Sierra Magazine and as professor of English in the University of Mississippi's MFA program, where she previously was the John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence in 2016-17.

[3] Nezhukumatathil draws upon her Filipina and Malayali Indian background to give her perspective on love, loss, and land.

Her first collection, Miracle Fruit, won the 2003 Tupelo Press Prize and the Global Filipino Literary Award in Poetry, was named the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year in Poetry, and was a finalist for the Asian American Literary Award and the Glasgow Prize.

[4] Oceanic was published in 2018 and won the 2019 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award for poetry.

[6][7][8] Of her process, Nezhukumatathil has stated: "I never set out to write a book—even after 4 books, I still find that prospect daunting.