Review: Death-Defying Acts by Erin Keane
Faves: “The Tattooed Lady’s First,” “Zorada Consults the Magic Ball,” “The Lion Tamer Demonstrates,” and “How Do You Get a Clown to Stop Smiling? Hit Him in the Face with an Axe!”
This collection of poems could easily form the makings of a Baz Luhrmann film–the sumptuous sets, the bold cover, the burlesque imagery, the urgency of the telling of the tale.
Death-Defying Acts beckons us to let our freak flags fly, showing us a sideshow we can relate to almost too deeply: the clown who can’t find his mate, the tattooed woman who worries her novelty will end when she runs out of skin, the lion tamer who feigns bravery but brandishes a gun, the fortune teller who can tell only what anyone else could discern. Anyone might find herself trying to escape a life that wasn’t so glamorous: “You’re a wild, bored girl / you’d end up here sooner / or later,” the clown explains. As the book is an exit from the doldrums of the day-in and day-out, for the characters in its pages, the circus itself proves to be an escape act, the greatest of all tricks.
Keane plays with form in this text, but nearly always to the advantage of character development. Using both traditional forms and invented ones, such as the Photomat poems, which are divided into four sections like photobooth pictures, Keane offers the speakers depth and a variety of emotion that complicates the sword-swallowing, flame-throwing, sideshow-dom to which we have banished the Ringling Bros. And, probably more importantly, it points the reader to his own act or talent, how he uses it to run away, and why it could eventually cause him to return, painted, tattooed, or flying from a bar.
While some characters have more compelling story lines than others, with somewhat stronger voices (particularly the Tattooed Lady and the Clown), the language is precise, beautiful, and relationship-driven. This book is for those who need to break from the realization that “[a]ll you / have is your skin, and what it covers” and those who have made peace with it.
Fun fact: Erin Keane may or may not be able to fly on a trapeze, but she is a journalist who writes about theater and the arts in Louisville, Kentucky.
Now enjoy the trailer for The Greatest Show on Earth because, how could you not?
