She studied at Barnard College of Columbia University, where she was a contemporary and friend of roommate Margaret Mead.

[9][10] Fantasy writer, poet and editor Lin Carter attended her Poetry Workshop while studying at Columbia University.

In a review of the book, Louise Bogan wrote: "Poems such as "Companions of the Morass," "For Harvest," "Grapes Making," and "The Runner with the Lots" spring from and are indications of a poetic endowment as deep as it is rare.

"[13] In 1955, in a brief autobiography written for a biographical dictionary of modern literature, Adams threw a little light on her religious and political views: "My father... made me a childhood agnostic — I am now a Roman Catholic....

[citation needed] Superficially, Léonie Adams' style did not change greatly over her lifetime, but there was an initial shy wonder at the world that eventually became an intense and almost devotional lyricism.

In a mid-2000s critical commentary for the Wom-Po (Discussion of Women's Poetry) website, poet Annie Finch provided a more postmodern reading of Adams as "a lush, sensual poet who directed her sensuality not towards other people but primarily towards the materials of poetry, towards syntax and symbol, diction and word-sound, in short, towards the language itself," and went on to say that "Adams' poetry teases the balance between the incantatory and representational powers of poetic language.

She uses the sounds of language as counterweights to her poems' ostensible meanings, complicating the act of reading and calling into question a reader's emotional responses.