Wonder and Wrath

“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

"Juster regards the common and the sacred in the everyday . . . Sections titled Outer, Inner, and Other form a cohesive triptych that anchors this strong collection, which includes Juster's skilled translations of poems by Li Po and Rimbaud, and a take on a Bob Dylan classic that is very funny and not to be missed."―Booklist

“Wonder and Wrath represents the culmination and integration of A. M. Juster's diverse and remarkable career. In nine previous volumes of poetry and verse translation, Juster displayed mastery of so many modes and manners that it was sometimes difficult to bring his artistic personality into focus. In Wonder and Wrath, the variety remains, but the superb new poems are compellingly unified. Juster's late style is capacious—nothing human is alien to him. He is simultaneously tender and savage, witty and sad, vulgar and learned. In this go-for-broke volume, Juster also writes in over two dozen forms from sonnet to pantoum, haiku to heroic couplet, all splendidly handled. Page after page, the poems strike home.”—Dana Gioia, author of 99 Poems: New & Selected

"For twenty years now, Juster has been a powerful and vital force for poetry. He has proven himself a master of formal poetics (if the form exists, he’s probably used it, and to stunning effect). As an exemplary translator, he has brought out of obscurity poems from the Chinese classics through the long Roman tradition, as well as works from Welsh and the African oral tradition, Aldheim, Milton’s Latin, Petrarch, Baudelaire, Rilke, and Housman. He’s a brilliant satirist as well, with delightful riffs on Billy Collins and Bob Dylan. As dark as many of these poems may be, their lyrical meters will move and comfort you, and surely make you laugh as only good poetry, like a good joke with a real punch, can."—Paul Mariani, author of Ordinary Time: Poems and The Mystery of It All