The Fire Eater and the Bearded Lady by Sally Albiso

In the poetry chapbook, The Fire Eater and the Bearded Lady, the reader is invited into the world of an old-time circus/sideshow. Each poem is in the persona and voice of various circus performers, both human and animal, employees, and spectators—who are also complicit in the acts they see. From roustabout to elephant, lion tamer to clown, the circus exposes us all.

“The circus exposes us all,” the Ringmaster warns in the introductory poem, and this is exactly what happens. Sally Albiso puts sword-swallowers and lion-tamers in the center stage, but the spotlight actually focuses on the reader, on basic human desires and needs, which should be the meat of any good poem. A tight collection of poetry that is also entertaining.

–Patrick Loafman, author of Somewhere Upriver

These delicious, haunting poems take you inside the circus-really inside, to the inner worlds of performers and audience. From the escaped giraffe to the eponymous happy couple, to the lion “whose roar contains a darkness,” none are innocent and none are spared the poet’s light, perceptive twist. She’ll show you how to swallow swords, why the magician’s daughter may float away, and why a man in the audience could secretly love the spider lady. Sally Albiso‘s art is always chiaroscuro, wonder and pain together: “So trying, this act of faith, /this bearing witness.”

–Molly Hollenbach