Fire at the Big Top

The 80th anniversary of the circus fire looms / like burnt smoke over water. Now you are // both the boy and the girl and the only one / left to tell this story. So begins this collection of flaming poems that illuminates sexual love and lights up the circus. Yannone gives each performer a sonnet in a corona that includes the wire walker, the clown, the human cannonball, the bandleader. Before you've finished reading this page-turner, which is both a jeremiad and a joy, you'll even hear fro...