Adaptations

Overview

Reviews

“From quiet domestic scenes to sweeping ecological meditations, VA Smith’s Adaptations traverses personal grief, cultural reckoning, and environmental crisis, always returning to the question of how we endure and evolve. The poems in this collection are anchored in the intimate experiences of love and friendship, but they also reach outward to myth, to art, and to the intricacies of a changing world . . . Smith’s voice is unflinching, often playful, always honest . . . steadfast in its commitment to bearing complicated witness.” —Troy Urquhart, editor, Willows Wept Review

“With an ear for the lyric and the absurd in human action––scraping off cancers, visiting a son in prison, attending a Zoom funeral––the speaker of VA Smith’s Adaptations also reaches for a less human-centric way of being. Mulling over ‘this late lust for transformation’ and ‘how autocracy happened here,’ these poems root themselves in a time of rapid collapse––of ecosystems, species, and democracies––and propose, ‘Let’s slip our skin this New Year, / change our species.’ In Smith’s Adaptations, I find a companion for change.” —K.A. Hays, author of Anthropocene Lullaby

“VA Smith swirls and rocks her readers inside fields of grassy waves, across beaches dotted with moon jellies, and into the eye of a dung beetle navigating by stars. In a world altered by climate, time, or chance, Smith’s lyric searches for a foothold: for ‘lungs lush with language, / bodies’ rhythm sprung, hearts pumping / with metaphor’s grace— / to make new things both disparate, the same.’ These poems are remarkable, stunning in form, language, and insight into adaptations.” —Dawn Terpstra, head, Iowa Poetry Association, author of Songs from the Summer Kitchen

Author Biography