The Uses of the Body

Deborah Landau

Deborah Landau’s The Uses of the Body is propelled by two unanticipated events—a death and a birth. The irrepressible drives and vulnerabilities of the female body, and its various “uses,” fill these lyrically haunting poems with tenderness and desire. The poems slant and swerve as Landau explores the complexities of marriage, motherhood, and sexuality, conjuring a cherished domestic life beset by ennui and illness, singing often unspoken truths.

ISBN: 9781556594816

Format: Paperback

About the Author

Deborah Landau is the author of Soft Targets, winner of The Believer Book Award in Poetry; The Uses of the Body; The Last Usable Hour; and Orchidelirium, which was selected by Naomi Shihab Nye for the Anhinga-Robert Dana Prize for Poetry. In 2016 she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. The Uses of the Body was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, and included on “Best of 2015″ lists by The New Yorker, Vogue, BuzzFeed, and O, The Oprah Magazine. A Spanish …

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Reviews

“[T]houghtful, social, watchful… Get this book.” —NPR

“Landau’s killer wit evokes Dorothy Parker crossed with Sylvia Plath—leaping spark after spark, growing to deadly dark fire. The Uses of the Body is her best book, its acerbic tone (“The uses of the body, illusion”) interspersed with lines of grave and startling beauty.” —Los Angeles Times

“A thrilling meditation on the passages of a woman’s life.” —O, The Oprah Magazine

“Like Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, but for girls (and women): Deborah Landau’s vividly relatable third collection… reminds us that coming of age lasts well beyond adolescence.” —Vogue