Poetry Review: A Clown at Midnight

The performance is over; the applauding audience is now asleep at home, dreaming of fire eaters, trapeze artists, and dancing elephants. So what does a clown do at midnight?

Down these mean streets a bad joke walks alone,

bruised head held low, chin tucked in tight, eyes down,

defiant. He laughs and it turns into a moan.

His wife left years ago, and his kids all groan,

claim they have never of him, and frown,

Down these mean streets a bad joke walks alone…

What does a clown do after midnight? He uses rhyme, and homonyms, poetic lines all ending in the same sound, a “new formalism” that seems almost offhand, deliberately careless, but still very tightly structured and controlled.

A Clown Walks at Midnight: Poems is Andrew Hudgins’s new collection, officially published today by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Photography by George GrimmHowell via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.