Soulmate as a Verb

By: Kelsey L. Smoot

Published by MIT Press, 2026-02-24

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.