Two Poems
EpilogueThe caution tape is tatteredand flapping in the wind.Birds guard the medianwhere glass and steel lie shattered.There are no robins hymningor gawkers at this scene—only a lowered sun,raw cries of crows, and dimming. To Her Husband for Beating HerThrough your heart’s lining let there be pressed—slanting down— A dagger to the bone in your chest. Your knee crushed, your hand smashed, may the rest Be gutted by the sword you possessed.(Translated from the Middle Welsh of Gwerful Mechain)
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- June 13, 2021
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“Epilogue” and “To Her Husband for Beating Her” from WONDER & WRATH: by A.M. Juster.
Published by Paul Dry Books September 29th 2020.
Copyright © 2020 by A.M. Juster.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
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A.M. Juster (@amjuster on Twitter), the poetry editor of Plough, is the author of ten books of original and translated poetry, including Tibullus’ Elegies (Oxford University Press 2008), Sleaze & Slander (Measure Press 2016) and Wonder & Wrath (Paul Dry Books 2020), and his translation of Petrarch’s Canzoniere is due from W.W. Norton in 2023. A three-time winner of the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award, his work has appeared in Poetry, The Hudson Review, The Paris Review, Rattle and many other journals.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
"The meditative tenth book from poet and translator Juster closely considers contemporary life and mortality, as well as the whimsical and unexpected. These poems imagine the characters of A Midsummer Night’s Dream hungover, fruit flies drunk on Riesling, and 'A Kay Ryan Fanboy Poem,' but they also engage with the threat of tumors, and the difficulties of mourning the dead. Juster’s images are vivid and precise."
—Publishers Weekly
"Juster is a poet of control—carefully pared lines whose concision creates profluent energy."
—The Millions
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