Michael J. Astrue has served as a White House lawyer, general counsel for Health and Human Services, and the commissioner of Social Security — the serious career of a serious man doing serious public work. Which makes it all the more interesting that, under the penname A.M. Juster (an anagram), he has published reams of comic verse, Latin poetic translations, and his own thoughtful poetry. His collection “Wonder & Wrath,” for example, contains “Untamed Daughter,” a Shakespearean sonnet, as befits its Shakespearean subject, that merges comedy with a father’s love for his daughter. The third entry in The New York Sun’s week of presenting the work of living poets.

Untamed Daughter
by A.M. Juster

“…come, Kate, come, you must not look so sour.”
— The Taming of the Shrew

At fourteen she loves being critical
and tells me, “Shakespeare uses language well,
but could have been, like, more original . . . ”
I sputter, but rebuttals fail to jell.
All those recycled plots make it appear
to her he was a sneaky plagiarist—
no better than that girl expelled last year—
so “they” should take him off her reading list.

Please, Caitlin, let it go; great writers borrow
like gamblers. Don’t begrudge the Bard a source
that he reshaped into Verona’s sorrow,
Miranda’s tenderness, or Lear’s remorse,
but mark him down at least a point or two
because he tamed a Kate as fierce as you.

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With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by Joseph Bottum with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, the Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.