Empire Burlesque begins with a romp through the Journals of Lewis and Clark and ends with cameo appearances by Ambrose Bierce, Marianne Moore, Ezra Pound (in drag), Andy Warhol, and even King Kong. Mark Svenvold was inspired to this approach, which he describes as that of a "clown lost in the Library of Babel," by the letters of Jules Laforgue, who believed clowns had achieved true wisdom. With this collection the author shares Ezra Poundian-inflected poems that are funny, that are as serious as they come, and that realign the personal with the historical.
