A. M. Juster

I leave my sixteenth year of sighsand head into my final onealthough it seems I’ve just begunexploring ways to agonize. The bitter’s sweet, my losses wise,and life a weight. I pray my runof bad luck ends; I’d be undoneif Death did shut her lovely eyes. Sadly, I stay, but long to go,and long . . . . Continue Reading »

No American poet has ever matched the thorough understanding of Catholic history and doctrine that James Matthew Wilson possesses.  Continue Reading »

Let Us Watch Richard Wilbur:A Biographical Studyby robert bagg and mary bagguniversity of massachusetts, 392 pages, $32.95 Richard Wilbur died peacefully, surrounded by family, on October 14. Though he had a full life, he did not receive the Nobel Prize or the biography that he deserved. . . . . Continue Reading »

Becoming a Poet in Anglo-Saxon England
 by emily thornbury
 cambridge, 338 pages, $99 My years of mandatory Latin began when I was eleven. Almost immediately I hated the language more than the mandatory tie and jacket that made me an easy target for bullying on the six public buses I rode each . . . . Continue Reading »

Here on the sand lies crusty limulus, the stalwart crab of the marine Old Right. Untouched by any trendy stimulus, our kind assesses change in clear, cold light before once more deciding to hold tight.You chose not to evolve or to rebel. Resisting odd mutations served you well. Last rites like . . . . Continue Reading »

Slow, old python of my Everglades, he astutely picks where he invades: data dumps; the depths of lower courts; knotted weeds in annual reports. Rounded figures fail to square; a will screws the worthy with a codicil. . . . . Continue Reading »

All spring she brushed aside my arguments that it was cheaper and would make more sense to fill the yard with hardy Yankee stock. She bought her maple, junked the chain-link fence, and tried to start a lawn; our crabby flock of grackles grew too fat on seed to quarrel. While masons tamed the mud . . . . Continue Reading »

63 When bloody flooding killed the human race And brand-new oceans put man in his place, Except for those who carried mankind’s seed, I, first of creatures, snubbed what law decreed, While I mocked yielding to the Lord’s command, For which, I think, a poet would declare, “The sin . . . . Continue Reading »

I conjure NBC in black-and-white. You drop dry ice in water; fog is rising. You sell us Celsius and Fahrenheit. I lose you in a cloud of advertising” Winston, Esso, Zenith, Mr. Clean, those thirty-second breaks for Ovaltine” then smile at Bunsen burners and balloons, more ropes and . . . . Continue Reading »

Loved that first book—it’s got no equal—  but, Johnny, we don’t love your sequel. If you would only take a chance on self-help or a gay romance, we’d let you keep your last advance. Phony conspiracies would do if you could find a hook or two—  like someone famous . . . . Continue Reading »