Is This My Final Form?: Penguin Poets

by Amy Gerstler

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.

Audible Audio

Published April 1, 2025

About the author

Known for its wit and complexity, Amy Gerstler's poetry deals with themes such as redemption, suffering, and survival. Author of over a dozen poetry collections, two works of fiction, and various articles, reviews, and collaborations with visual artists, Gerstler won the 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry for Bitter Angel (1990). Her early work, including White Marriage/Recovery (1984), was highly praised. Gerstler's more recent works include Nerve Storm (1993), Medicine (2000), Ghost Girl (2004), Dearest Creature (2009), which the New York Times named a Notable Book of the Year, and Scattered At Sea (2015), which was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Born in 1956, Gerstler is a graduate of Pitzer College and holds an M.F.A. from Bennington College. She is now a professor in the MFA writing program at the University of California, Irvine. Previously, she taught in the Bennington Writing Seminars program, at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California and the University of Southern California's Master of Professional Writing Program. She lives in California with her husband, the artist and author Benjamin Weissman.