Skeleton Leaves

Skeleton Leaves

Author: Helen Marshall
Genres: Poetry, Dark Fantasy, Horror
Publisher: Kelp Queen Press
Publication Year: 2012

Helen Marshall takes a children’s classic, strips away the flesh, and reveals the dark heart of Peter Pan beating beneath. At once about the violence of immature imaginings and the bitterness of banal adulthood where those imaginings are abandoned, Skeleton Leaves is magical in the true meaning of the word: dangerous and wild and hauntingly seductive. Disturbing as hell, yet extraordinarily compassionate, its ambition creeps up on you to quite dizzying effect. Reading these poems is an awfully big adventure indeed.

“He was a lovely boy, clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze out of trees but the most entrancing thing about him was that he had all his first teeth…”  —J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan

 

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Awards

Aurora Award for Best Poem (Winner)
Rhysling Award (Nominated)
Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement (Preliminary Ballot)

Robert Shearman

“Helen Marshall takes a children’s classic, strips away the flesh, and reveals the dark heart of Peter Pan beating beneath. . . . Reading these poems is an awfully big adventure indeed.”

What the Critics are Saying

  • “Helen Marshall takes a children’s classic, strips away the flesh, and reveals the dark heart of Peter Pan beating beneath. At once about the violence of immature imaginings and the bitterness of banal adulthood where those imaginings are abandoned, Skeleton Leaves is magical in the true meaning of the word: dangerous and wild and hauntingly seductive. Disturbing as hell, yet extraordinarily compassionate, its ambition creeps up on you to quite dizzying effect. Reading these poems is an awfully big adventure indeed.”
    Robert ShearmanAuthor of Remember Why You Fear Me
  • “With Ondaatje-like resonance and attention to detail, Marshall explores the fatal attraction between a boy who never grows up and a pirate in love with his own death, the deforming ideals of motherhood and the sad similarities between adulthood and Alzheimer’s.”
    Gemma FilesAuthor of The Hexslinger Series
  • “Helen Marshall’s sinister and elegant vision permeates this beautiful book, leaving the reader feeling like they have somehow been transported to Neverland and back, bringing with them the shades of lost boys and their spectral mothers, trailing words flying from between dark stars. Gorgeous and heartbreaking.”
    Sandra KasturiAuthor of The Animal Bridegroom

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