Mahalia Smith’s Seed Beetle toes the line between poetry, academia, and novella in verse. Crafting a unique – but not that far from our own – future of climate devastation, Smith’s characters work through forgotten history, corporate overreach, and uninhabitable lands through community, family, and, yes, poetry.

I thoroughly enjoyed stepping into this strange world and was intentionally unsettled by its parallels to our own. The foreword does an excellent job setting the stage of both this dystopia and its characters. Framed chronologically as the lifetime experiences of one particular activist, it covers a range of social and personal events and their resolutions. The tone of the poems changes appropriately throughout these phases too, each section bearing its own particular flavor and style.

The seed beetles, their concept, and their personification were one of my favorite parts of this book, as was the first section about one of Nebula’s mother’s experiences working with the beetles. I have a fondness for sci-fi poetry, and this collection blends a cool idea with a positive message of hope, humanity, and restoration.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.