Everyone loves a circus, and Michael Harris’s first collection since his much-acclaimed Selected Poems (2002) offers readers the chance to run away and join a project of great originality and distinctiveness.

Stocked with colourful personalities who earn their living under the Big Top—from clowns to acrobats, tightrope walkers to lion tamers—Circus recreates the drama and mystique of the centre ring with enough peek-behind-the-curtain moments to ground this secret society in the nitty-gritty of marriage, parenthood, old age, and death. And, like a high-wire act in itself, Harris’s poems put on a show to be marveled over: carefully choreographed, death-defying, full tumble and daring.

Michael Harris' most recent book of poems, Circus (2010) was nominated for the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry. He is a two-time winner of the CBC Literary Competition, and has translated the complete poetry of Marie-Claire Blais (Veiled Countries\ Lives). He lives in Montreal, Quebec, where runs Montreal Books, a rare and used Internet bookshop. During his tenure as editor of Signal Editions, Michael Harris saw through to publication some 60 titles. The present volume is Signal's 100th book.

Michael Harris' profile page