This is an anthology of irreverence and humor in the hands of our best poets. Can serious poetry be funny? Chaucer and Shakespeare would say yes, and so do the authors of these 187 poems that address timeless concerns but that also include comic elements. Beginning with the Beats and the New York School and continuing with both marquee-name poets and newcomers, ""Seriously Funny"" ranges from poems that are capsized by their own tomfoolery to those that glow with quiet wit to ones in which a laugh erupts in the midst of terrible darkness. Most of the selections were made in the editors' battered compact car, otherwise known as the Seriously Funny Mobile Unit. During the two years in which Barbara Hamby and David Kirby made their choices, they'd set out with a couple of boxes of books in the back seat, and whoever wasn't driving read to the other. When they found that a poem made both of them think but laugh as well, they earmarked it. Readers will find a true generosity in these poems, an eagerness to share ideas and emotions and also to entertain. The singer Ali Farka Toure said that honey is never good when it's only in one mouth, and the editors of ""Seriously Funny"" hope its readers find much to share with others.

Contributions by: David Bottoms, Lucille Clifton, Wanda Coleman, Michael Collier, Carl Dennis, Stephen Dobyns, Stephen Dunn, B. H. Fairchild, Beth Ann Fennelly, Allen Ginsberg, Louise Gluck, Albert Goldbarth, Robert Hass, Terrance Hayes, Tony Hoagland, Andrew Hudgins, T. R. Hummer, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Caroline Knox, Yusef Komunyakaa, David Lehman, Thomas Lux, William Matthews, Kevin McFadden, Campbell McGrath, Heather McHugh, Peter Meinke, Phyllis Moore, Harryette Mullen, Lucia Perillo, Michael Ryan, Tim Seibles, Alan Shapiro, Charles Simic, Maura Stanton, James Tate, Robert Wrigley, Dean Young, Kevin Young, Kim Addonizio, Ginger Andrews, Nin Andrews, John Ashbery, Dorothy Barresi, Erin Belieu, Josh Bell, Charles Bernstein, John Berryman, George Bilgere, Richard Blanco, Adrian Blevins, Daniel Borzutsky, Catherine Bowman, Jason Bredle, Geoffrey Brock, Christopher Bursk, Richard Cecil, Maxine Chernoff, Marilyn Chin, David Clewell, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Billy Collins, Gregory Corso, Justin Courter, Jim Daniels, Gregory Djanikian, Denise Duhamel, Martín Espada, Steve Fellner, Richard García, David Graham, Paul Guest, R. S. Gwynn, James Allen Hall, Mark Halliday, Jeffrey Harrison, Bob Hicok, Richard Howard, David Huerta, Bruce A. Jacobs, Rodney Jones, James Kimbrell, Galway Kinnell, Jennifer L. Knox, Kenneth Koch, Ron Koertge, William Logan, Jynne Dilling Martin, Adrian Matejka, Lynne McMahon, Richard Newman, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Frank O'Hara, Sharon Olds, Lawrence Raab, Freeman Rogers, Aidan Rooney, J. Allyn Rosser, Steve Scafidi, Natalie Shapero, Julie Sheehan, Enid Shomer, Martha Silano, Gary Soto, Gerald Stern, Angelo Verga, Paul Violi, Charles Harper Webb, Susan Wood, Franz Wright, Lois-Ann Yamanaka, Ray A. Young Bear, Matthew Zapruder, Bill Zavatsky