"Samantha Terrell sees our world with sharper eyes than ours, the more intimate the detail, the more exquisite the revelation. In these lines, the writer's hope becomes ours: "I want to write words worthy of being / chewed up and swallowed- / clutched in fistfuls / like purple phlox from / roadside ditches." Even childish hope inspired by a rabbit's foot is examined: "soft silk fur in my small hand may not have brought actual luck, but reminded me it might," yet "I recall nubbins of rabbit claw lay nestled beneath the softness of hope." The writer's experience is continually explored in greater detail, and the truth she sees is often surprising enough to be shocking: "where you're dying/ by the ocean, // your dogs run / on the beach unawares." And when we look to the stars for answers, she startles and reminds us that at the same time "occasionally, clusters of words point to something." That is a great insight for writers and readers of poems, and on every occasion, Samantha Terrell's work asks us to look more closely and always provides a deeper meaning when we do."
- Eric Paul Shaffer
In Survival Instincts, Samantha Terrell confronts the turbulent landscapes of both society and self with clarity, compassion, and unflinching honesty. Divided into two interconnected sections - Surviving Society and Surviving Selfhood - this collection explores political unrest, grief, faith, environmental anxiety, love, and the enduring search for meaning in uncertain times. Through vivid imagery and deeply reflective verse, Terrell examines what it means to remain human amid fractured institutions and private sorrows. Whether contemplating democracy, memory, mortality, or the quiet resilience found in everyday life, these poems invite readers to embrace vulnerability and discover peace within the ache. At once timely and timeless, Survival Instincts is a meditation on endurance, hope, and the instincts that carry us forward when the world - and our own hearts - feel most unsettled.