David LaLone is a native of Lansing Michigan, where he lives with wife and two daughters. David has a degree in theology, which he thought would be used in full time pastoral ministry. This however was not the path his life would take. He wrote many of these poems while struggling to understand his role in ministry. He identifies with the persona of the Sad Clown. This clown is a marionette waiting for God to pull the strings. He is sad, and yet he is meant to make people smile. His poetry often swings along such pendulum emotions. His faith is stitched into every line. David is a lamenting prophet using his god given gift of words to paint the images that rise up from within and without. These are poems written in his late twenties. He has felt the thrill of graduation and the fear of the real world. He has started a church and watched it fall. He has invested in ministry to watch him fail. He has seen death and prayed for life from his wife's womb. David shares his life. His poetry is a window into his soul.Everyone knows that clowns are supposed to make you happy. So when as clown looks sad we are perplexed on what to do. I think this is a good image of the poetry in this book. When I wrote them I felt like I was in a sad clown season of life. This is not poetry meant to be depressing but like a sad clown it may make you a bit uncomfortable. I hope that these poems are able to impact you in a powerful way.

A gorgeously rendered graphic novel of Daniel Alarcón’s story City of Clowns. From the author of The King Is Always Above the People, which was longlisted for the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction. Oscar “Chino” Uribe is a young Peruvian journalist for a local tabloid paper. After the recent death of his philandering father, he must confront the idea of his father’s other family, and how much of his own identity has been shaped by his father’s murky morals. At the same time, he begins to chronicle the life of street clowns, sad characters who populate the violent and corrupt city streets of Lima, and is drawn into their haunting, fantastical world. This remarkably affecting story by Daniel Alarcón was included in his acclaimed first book, War by Candlelight, and now, in collaboration with artist Sheila Alvarado, it takes on a new, thrilling form. This graphic novel, with its short punches of action and images, its stark contrasts between light and dark, truth and fiction, perfectly corresponds to the tone of Chino’s story. With the city of Lima as a character, and the bold visual language from the story, City of Clowns is moving, menacing, and brilliantly vivid.

Philip Larkin meets Larry David: lyric poetry about love, death, and erectile dysfunction.

Sad Clown Paradox is a collection of the funniest and unfunniest shower thoughts from a real life Pagliacci. This is the second book of poetry from Toronto comedian and improvisor Rosh Abdullah

Clowns: In Conversation with Modern Masters is a groundbreaking collection of conversations with 20 of the greatest clowns on earth. In discussion with clown aficionados Ezra LeBank and David Bridel, these legends of comedy reveal the origins, inspirations, techniques, and philosophies that underpin their remarkable odysseys. Featuring incomparable artists, including Slava Polunin, Bill Irwin, David Shiner, Oleg Popov, Dimitri, Nola Rae, and many more, Clowns is a unique and definitive study on the art of clowning. In Clowns, these 20 master artists speak candidly about their first encounters with clowning and circus, the crucial decisions that carved out the foundations of their style, and the role of teachers and mentors who shaped their development. Follow the twists and turns that changed the direction of their art and careers, explore the role of failure and originality in their lives and performances, and examine the development and evolution of the signature routines that became each clown’s trademark. The discussions culminate in meditations on the role of clowning in the modern world, as these great practitioners share their perspectives on the mysterious, elusive art of the clown.

A poetry collection that grapples with the tragicomic nature of language, memory, love, work, and the performative self. Though at times whimsical and witty, the poems in Hastings Hensel's Ballyhoo inhabit the world beyond and between the punchline. In tightly controlled meditations on language's limits and its necessity, as well as on the many forms that humor takes—comedy, laughter, farce, clowning, parody, and more—Hensel navigates fine lines between joy and sadness, jokes and cruelty, reality and illusion, and irony and sincerity. Universal in scope, the 47 poems in Ballyhoo are richly idiomatic and evocative. They are also frequently grounded in the southern Atlantic coast with its particular ecology, characters, history, and myth. The pleasure in reading these poems comes from the original connections Hensel makes between the literary and the gritty: an elegy set in a bait shop, Twelfth Night's Feste delivering a monologue in a bar, a villanelle about a murder on a cruise ship. These intelligent, insightful poems remind us of the frail but important relationships between comedy, memory, and identity. Ballyhoo offers a sobering examination of the tragicomic nature of the world.

Original and ambitious poetry that makes readers pay attention to the current conversation about the nature of lyric and human relationships in the 21st century.