This truth's no beauty.

Fair warning: The poem I want to talk about today has several strikes against it.

It's a poem about poetry. And a rape poem. And a political polemic. And it's an extended villanelle—six lines longer than the garden-variety 19-line villanelle, which many readers feel is already too damn long.

What's not to hate?

But today, having woken up to the sickening news that the U.S. Senate just confirmed Todd Blanche as Attorney General in a 50–49 vote early this morning…what's not to hate?

I feel more dismayed now by the DOJ's contempt for the girls who survived Epstein’s sex trafficking than I did when I published the poem in The New Verse News last February. (Then, Todd Blanche was merely the lieutenant helping Attorney General Pam Bondi to delay and deny justice to the Epstein survivors, and personally meeting with Epstein's partner in crime, Ghislaine Maxwell, for nine hours before moving her to a cushier prison.)

• Brank/branks: A device formerly used to punish women judged to be noisy and quarrelsome, consisting of an iron curb for the tongue, held in place by a frame around the head. Also called a scold’s bridle.

You have to tell the truth, but tell it slant.
To lay it bare’s unbearable. (You’ve tried.)
You’d like to leave it buried, but you can’t.
Too few have cared to hear a woman rant
since Homer (“Sing, O Muse, of anger”) died.
You have to tell the truth; but tell it slant,
since, frankly, even Keats would have to grant
this truth’s no beauty. This, you’ve had to hide.
You’d like to leave it buried. But you can’t,
so Dickinson’s advice is relevant.
She’ll be your Virgil, your inferno-guide.
You have to “Tell [...] the truth, but tell it slant— ”
(“Tell ALL the truth.”) But don’t get adamant,
“Or every man be blind—,” she qualified.
You’d like to leave it bare. (Read: But you can’t.)
Loud girls get label-gagged: once, Termagant,
Virago, Shrew; now, Bitch. Take that in stride.
(You have, to tell the truth.) But tell it—slant
or no—you must. Omit the bitter. Scant
the pathos. Cut the caustic. Snip the snide.
(You’d like to leave it, buried.) But you can’t
accuse the rich of rape, or lawyers chant,
“No, he’s the victim! She’s a slut who lied.”
You have to tell the truth, but tell it slant.
You’d like to leave it buried. But you can’t.

February 2026, The New Verse News
NOTES

The confirmation of Donald Trump's toadiest toady, Todd Blanche, to the top law enforcement position in the United States had seemed doomed just a few days ago. What happened?

Apparently, Blanche's many Trump-pleasing misdeeds, and the certainty that there will be more to follow, can be forgiven by so-called conservative Senators, because Trump's other threats and bribes were sweetened by the carrot dangled a few days ago—namely, Blanche's recently-leaked, previously-secret assurances to faith groups that he intends to restrict access to abortion in all 50 states.

Apparently these Senators can justify not throwing out the Blanche bathwater—which everyone agrees is as foul as the Trump-tainted Reflecting Pool—by saying “But look at all the babies we're saving!”

One bright spot in all this: The repeatedly-demonstrated grace under pressure of several survivors of Epstein's sex trafficking—and especially of Dani Bensky, as shown in this 7 minute and 17 second video of her testimony in a Senate Judiciary hearing on Blanche's AG nomination.

I fervently hope that at least some of these women will choose to bring their integrity and courage into public office. We need leaders like these to replace the spineless scoundrels now willing to give Trump and his wealthy ilk Carte Blanche for their sexual, financial, and other crimes.

Julie Steiner

My poem publications since June 26:

• On June 30, The Ekphrastic Review published two epigrams on Michelangelo’s sculpture Night (which I translated from the Italian of Strozzi and Michelangelo, respectively), followed by an epigram of my own.

• On July 11, Elsewhere: A Journal of Place published two of my sonnets—”Now Showing” and “Big Hit”—in its “End of the World” issue.

• On July 25, I participated in my first-ever reading! See my terror firsthand as I present my Laureates’ Choice-winning sonnet “Anatomical Theater (1594), University of Padua)” as part of the celebration of Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest winners. My bit starts at 33:02 of the video (I couldn't get the timestamped video link to work here).

  My poem also appears on page 17 of the flipbook of contest winners. And here’s a link to a beautiful photo of the anatomical theater.

• On August 3, I received my contributor's copy of Issue 25 of Stanford University’s Mantis: A Journal of Poetry, Criticism, and Translation. My translation of Maurice-Louis Faure's alexandrine sonnet, “The Death of the Cicada,” appears in a special section called “A Bug's Life.” (I'll wait three months and then will post the full text to the Cicadas & Other Wing-Things section of my Substack, which now has seven translations and a poem of my own.)

Forthcoming:

• Blue Unicorn accepted two triolets from my “One-Sided Argument” triolet series.

• The Brazen Head has accepted a three-sonnet series titled “SINE ULLA QUERELLA” (Latin for “without any complaint whatsoever”), inspired by my discussion of a memorial plaque at the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua with my mother as she waited for confession. (I had gone to the far-shorter line for the French-speaking priest; Mom had joined the line for the English-speaking priest after a whole busload of pilgrims from the Philippines.)

• The Ekphrastic Review will reprint my sonnet “Topiary Outside the ER” on September 3. It had previously appeared on the American Arts Quarterly website in 2015, a month before the website was taken down forever. Hooray for second chances!

• The New Verse News has accepted my translation of “The Egg” by Jean Amade (20 lines in alexandrine couplets) for its Winter 2027 issue.