SOULMATE AS A VERB
by Kelsey L. Smoot
Poems of tender knowledge, buoyant survival, and Black, trans embodiment.
The simple yet fraught experience of embodiment lies at the thrumming heart of Kelsey L. Smoot’s Soulmate as a Verb. Bodies make love possible, they enable tender connection and transmit electric joy, all while leaving one vulnerable to discord and abuse, heartbreak and grief. Like a body, Smoot’s daring poetry metabolizes cruelty, seeking the tender knowledge and kinships that allow for buoyant survival. The subjectivity of a Black, trans self becomes a prism, shining a variegated intellect on everything from suburbia to Palestine, top surgery to police violence. By utilizing forms such as kwansaba, calligram, Craigslist personals, and golden shovels, Soulmate as a Verb revels in structures that locate poet and poem in a lineage of innovative and contemporary Black, queer verse. Kelsey L. Smoot dazzles.