Is This My Final Form?

A poet renowned for her “wit and complexity” (Poetry Foundation) explores the endless evolution and malleability of life on earth in her most curious, inventive collection to date

Aren’t we all shape-shifters Is any animal, vegetable, or mineral—even a commonplace object—what it seems to be at any given moment Who isn’t juggling constant transformations, conflicting roles, changing loyalties, loves, perceptions, and selves, all while being pummeled by shifting devotions, emotions, and obsessions Do even the dead continue to evolve in surprising ways

Reveling in these questions, Gerstler’s latest protean poetry collection includes loose sonnets, shapely praise of Mae West, the lament of an actor who can’t shed his costume, dramatic monologues, whiffs of gender slippage, a love lyric to the bride of Frankenstein, and a ten-minute play.