Skeletons

Witty and glam, Skeletons is a prismatic collection which shrugs off even the most disillusioned nihilist with humour and intimacy.

Initiated during Brooklyn's early lockdown, the book reflects the increasingly troubling simultaneity of Eros and Thanatos, and the discontents of our virtual lives amidst the threats of a pandemic and corrosive politics. Spring blooms relentlessly while the ambulances siren by. Against the mounting pressure that propels the acrostic Skeletons, a series of interstitial companion poems titled Flesh negotiate intimacy and desire.

The collection culminates in an ecstatic sequence celebrating the love and connection that persist despite our fraught present moment. Shrugging off her own anxiety and disillusionment with characteristic humour and pitch-perfect cadence, Landau finds levity in pyrotechnic lines, sonic play, and a wholly original language, asking: 'Any way outta this bag of bones?'