John Hollander’s Bastard Children
Upkeep
Vilifer, nilifer
Khloe Khardashian
Kashed in with trashy kin
Shooting their show.
Overluxuriant,
Koltish and prurient,
Even a kameo
Kalled for more dough.
Sharp Tongue
Lexicon, liaison,
Antidogmatical
Anna Grammatical
Held off the horde.
Even fanatical
Men of virility
Met with futility—
Words were her sword.
Bill
A much-troubled lawyer was dour
when clients he milked would get sour,
and if they complained,
one option remained:
he doubled each bilkable hour.
A.M. Juster is the author of Longing for Laura (Birch Brook Press 2001) (Petrarch translations); The Secret Language of Women (University of Evansville Press 2003); The Satires of Horace (University of Pennsylvania Press 2008); Tibullus’ Elegies (Oxford University Press 2012); Saint Aldhelm’s Riddles (University of Toronto Press 2015); Sleaze & Slander: New and Selected Comic Verse 1995-2015 (Measure Press 2016); The Billy Collins Experience (Kelsay Books 2016); The Elegies of Maximianus (University of Pennsylvania Press, anticipated in 2017). He has published poems and translations in Poetry,The Paris Review, The Hudson Review, Rattle,The New Criterion, Barrow Street, Southwest Review, North American Review, Michigan Quarterly Review and many other journals. Winner of the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award (three times), the Richard Wilbur Award and the Barnstone Translation prize, he is profiled here.