The Bear Wrestler

Robert Ostrom’ s latest collection,  The Bear Wrestler, weaves a lyrical tale of loss and reconstruction, inviting readers to journey through the tangled history of a family’ s myths and memories and to step into a world where whimsy meets devastation and the lines between deception and truth blur into a tapestry of fable and fact. At the heart of Ostrom’ s mesmerizing fourth book of poems is the bear— guide, father, sister, speaker, reader, and god. Sometimes caged by metaphor and anthropomorphism, other times free to simply be a bear, each incarnation peels back layers of masking. With empathy and wit,  The Bear Wrestler  reveals how masculinity and conceit get inscribed in the blood through storytelling. Prepare to wrestle with the lyrical truths that only a bear can reveal and to explore the delicate balance between fiction and reality in this evocative book.

Robert Ostrom is the author of  Sandhour  (2019),  Ritual and Bit  (winner of the 2015 Saturnalia Books Prize judged by Mary Ruefle), and  The Youngest Butcher in Illinois  (2013 Norma Farber First Book Award finalist). His most recent collection,  The Bear Wrestler, is forthcoming from Saturnalia Books in March 2025. His work has appeared in  The Bennington Review,  The Boston Review,  Lana Turner, and elsewhere. A professor of English at CUNY, Ostrom lives in Queens with his partner, two children, and two dogs.