“Over and over, the space of borders and boundaries – between home and the road, strength and vulnerability, femininity and masculinity, audience and performer, freak and mark – are not just questioned, but crushed. When the sideshow takes center stage, the places we occupy comfortably every day – our routines and desire for sameness, where our ‘calendar blanches / back into empty’ – are no longer comforting. Karrie Waarala’s performance of LONG GONE demands that we consider the other possibility, the one that just might hurt.” ~ from Patrick Manning’s review in Muzzle Magazine

Based on her full-length collection of circus sideshow persona poems, LONG GONE: A Poetry Sideshow is a one-woman show written, produced, and performed by Karrie Waarala. In it, she weaves together poetry, monologue, and multimedia to tell the story of Tess, a compulsive and haunted tattooed lady with the circus sideshow.

To book Karrie for a performance of LONG GONE: A Poetry Sideshow, or for a reading or workshop, please visit the Contact page.