About Sue Landers
Susan (Sue) Landers is a Brooklyn-based, Philly-bred poet and pedestrian.
Her new book, What to Carry Into the Future (Roof Books, 2025) came out of a quest to ride every NYC subway line end to end. Set within New York City’s subways, streets, and waterways, these poems explore the forms resilience and recovery take in the face of ongoing crises. The collection charts the continuous aftermath of catastrophe—9/11, Sandy, COVID, etc.—alongside the city’s many pleasures—the Wonder Wheel, tulip trees, strangers on a train breaking out into song. It is an unconditional love letter to a place whose conditions are not the easiest to love.
Sue is also the author of Franklinstein (Roof Books, 2016), a multi-genre collection about one Philadelphia neighborhood wrestling with the legacies of colonialism, racism, and capitalism. She is also the author of 248 mgs., a panic picnic (O Books, 2003) and Covers (O Books, 2007). Her chapbooks include Sidewalk Naturalist (above/ground press, 2024), 15: A Poetic Engagement with the Chicago Manual of Style (Least Weasel, 2011) and What I Was Tweeting While You Were On Facebook (Perfect Lovers Press, 2013).
Her poems have appeared in Poem-A-Day, The Brooklyn Rail, The Offing, and elsewhere. She was the founding editor of the experimental poetry journal POM2. She was a 2018 artist in residence at PLAYA Summer Lake and a 2015 resident fellow at Saltonstall Colony for the Arts. She has an MFA from George Mason University.
Beyond her life as a poet, Sue is a seasoned nonprofit leader, who served as executive director of Lambda Literary from 2018-2021. She currently works as an independent nonprofit consultant and as director of content strategy at Brooklyn College.
Photo credit: Monica Felix