In his debut poetry collection, award-winning writer and musician Brendan McLeod tracks the Covid-19 pandemic. What began as a personal project quickly blossomed into an ambitious record of society’s new rules, moral predicaments, and emotional upheavals. First published by Write Bloody North online, where it immediately sparked conversations around the social inequalities the pandemic exploited, select poems appear here in refined form that add another level of meaning to the visceral reactions of the originals.

Funny, harrowing, and compassionate, Friends Without Bodies mines the irony at the heart of the pandemic – that the greatest tool we have to protect ourselves, and others, is our own loneliness.

Brendan McLeod is the author of a novel, The Convictions of Leonard McKinley, and five theatre shows. His music group, The Fugitives, has been nominated for multiple Canadian Folk Music and Western Canadian Music Awards, including Best Roots Group, Best Songwriter, and Best Vocal Group. He was the Poet of Honour at the 2012 Canadian Festival of Spoken Word.

Brendan McLeod's profile page