In Beautiful Sadness laughter often simmers under a rueful – or strangely joyful – melancholy tone. These poems are the songs you might sing on street corners if, reaching beyond the troubles of daily life, you discover the resiliency of the spirit.

Lesley Choyce is a novelist and poet living at Lawrencetown Beach, Nova Scotia. He is the author of 86 books for adults, teens and children. He teaches in the English Department and Transition Year Program at Dalhousie University. He is a year-round surfer and founding member of the 1990s spoken word rock band, The Surf Poets. Choyce also runs Pottersfield Press, a small literary publishing house and hosted the national TV show, Off The Page, for many years. His books have been translated into Spanish, French, German and Danish and he has been awarded the Dartmouth Book Award, the Ann Connor Brimer Award and the Atlantic Poetry Prize.