{"id":3140,"date":"2015-10-15T13:28:11","date_gmt":"2015-10-15T18:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/?p=3140"},"modified":"2015-10-19T06:51:23","modified_gmt":"2015-10-19T11:51:23","slug":"selected-poems-establishes-updike-as-a-serious-poet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2015\/10\/15\/selected-poems-establishes-updike-as-a-serious-poet\/","title":{"rendered":"Selected Poems establishes Updike as a serious poet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Screen<\/a>John Updike<\/strong> once told an interviewer, \u201cI began as a writer of light verse, and have tried to carry over into my serious or lyric verse something of the strictness and liveliness of the lesser form.\u201d A man of few regrets, Updike also remarked that he wished he were taken more seriously as a poet. His Selected Poems<\/em><\/strong>, edited by Christopher Carduff and published earlier this week, ought to go a long way toward reinforcing that.<\/p>\n

When Knopf published 300+ poems in Collected Poems, 1953-1993<\/strong>, it reinforced quite another thing: that Updike wrote a LOT, and that some poems were more successful than others. But winnowing those poems in order to present 132 of the very best highlights Updike\u2019s considerable strengths as a poet.<\/p>\n

Carduff has done a fine job editing the volume, eliminating light verse and selecting a range of Updike\u2019s poetry that he ordered according to dates of completion, with the first poem being one that Updike wrote in 1953 at age 21\u2014a poem that son Michael would later chisel on the back of Updike\u2019s grave marker. The last was\u00a0composed in 2008 at age 76. In that poem, written after Updike knew he had little time left in this world, Updike contemplates religion one last time and ends with a quote from Psalm 23: \u201cSurely<\/em>\u2014magnificent, that \u2018surely\u2014 \/ goodness and mercy shall follow me all<\/em> \/ the days of my life<\/em>, my life, forever.\u201d The enjambment, of course, puts emphasis on \u201cthe days of my life . . . forever,\u201d so that Updike\u2019s last line reads like both an epitaph and a reaffirmation of the faith\u2014whether certain or wavering\u2014that informed much of Updike\u2019s writing.<\/p>\n

The longest poem in the collection is one that Updike scholars consider most important\u2014Updike’s assessment at the \u201cMidpoint\u201d of his life\u2014and that\u2019s balanced by the inclusion of the poems that were published under the title \u201cEndpoint.\u201d The shortest is \u201cBoil,\u201d a mere six lines: \u201cIn the night the white skin \/ cries aloud to be broken, \/ but finds itself a cruel prison; \/ so it is with reason, \/ which holds the terror in, \/ undoubted though the infection.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacArthur- and Guggenheim-winning poet Brad Leithauser wrote in his introductory essay, \u201cI\u2019m tempted to call what [Updike] does naked poetry, not least because he so often focused on erotic and bodily functions. . . . But the poems are naked in a broader sense. They typically come to us unmediated through any fictional presence. You feel that it\u2019s Updike himself (or perhaps John himself, since the poems foster, even between strangers, a companionable familiarity) who is addressing you. . . . Others have the apportioned stiffness of a studio portrait. But in the aggregate the poems present an album of himself more accurate and intimate and multifaceted than any similar-sized collection of his prose.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNaked poetry,\u201d let\u2019s call it, is only one type that is included in this volume, and those poems do stand out because there are no other big-name poets working in the English language who write raw or ribald but nonetheless accomplished poems about \u201cThe Beautiful Bowel Movement,\u201d \u201cElderly Sex,\u201d or \u201cTwo Cunts in Paris.\u201d With all the lyric marvel of Amy Lowell\u2019s \u201cSea Shell\u201d or Oliver Wendell Holmes\u2019 \u201cThe Chambered Nautilus,\u201d Updike looks down into the toilet and can\u2019t help but comment on \u201ca flawless coil, \/ unbroken, in the bowl, as if a potter \/ who worked in this most frail, least grateful clay \/ had set himself to shape a topaz vase. \/ O spiral perfection, not seashell nor \/ stardust, how can I keep you? With this poem.\u201d One suspects that Updike is caught, like many of his characters, in a dialectic\u2014in this case, between writing a serious lyric poem and penning a wry and sophisticated parody of such poems, as if the challenge to write a lyric about something so base was too tempting to forego, but also a little outrageous. But the poem also anticipates the last line in this collection by affirming Updike\u2019s conviction that immortality, or at least the illusion of it, is achieved through not only belief but also through writing.<\/p>\n

There are a number of \u201cnaked\u201d poems, in this volume, but there are also a number of ekphrastic poems (\u201cCalder\u2019s Hands\u201d), nostalgic poems (\u201cDutch Cleanser,\u201d \u201cMy Mother at Her Desk\u201d), formal verse (\u201cSpanish Sonnets,\u201d \u201cAirport,\u201d \u201cOxford, Thirty Years After\u201d), personal poems and tributes (\u201cTo Ed Sissman,\u201d \u201cElegy for a Real Golfer\u201d), lyric poems (\u201cSaguaros,\u201d \u201cChicory\u201d), literary poems (\u201cMarching through a Novel,\u201d \u201cBig Bard\u201d), and narrative poem (\u201cLeaving Church Early,\u201d \u201cCrab Crack\u201d). There are also a good many travel poems (\u201cPoisoned in Nassau,\u201d \u201cHeading for Nandi\u201d) inspired by Updike\u2019s adventures, which make it into verse more often than in his prose.<\/p>\n

Topically, Updike covers just as much ground. Included are poems about sports, music, art, food, nature, and descriptions of ordinary activities that underscore Updike\u2019s aesthetic credo that all of life is worthy of documenting in literature and that \u201cculture\u201d includes all human activity. Collectively these are powerful poems, and many of them\u2014like \u201cDog\u2019s Death\u201d\u2014resonate emotionally long after they\u2019re read. Yet such poems are also highly formal, employing carefully considered stanzas and such poetic devices as slant rhyme.<\/p>\n

Poems such as \u201cDog\u2019s Death\u201d stand up against the best written by contemporary authors, and Selected Poems<\/em> is rich with similarly powerful poems. The nakedness might stand out, but there are carefully constructed skeletons here too, and a use of language that rivals Updike\u2019s fiction for its judiciousness. Even when the poems begin in a highly prosaic manner, as happens with \u201cCrab Crack,\u201d Updike\u2019s poetic language still asserts itself, gilding philosophical musings that are as much a part of his poetry as his frank, raw, and highly personal sharings:<\/p>\n

\u201cNow they are done, red. Cracking \/ their preposterous backs, we cannot bear \/ to touch the tender fossils of their mouths \/ and marvel at the beauty of the gills, \/ the sweetness of the swimmerets. All is exposed, \/ an intricate toy. Life spins such miracles \/ by multiples of millions, yet our hearts \/ never quite harden, never quite cease \/ to look for the hand of mercy in \/ such workmanship. If when we die we\u2019re dead, \/ then the world is ours like gaudy grain \/ to be reaped while we\u2019re here, without guilt. \/ If not, then an ominous duty to feel \/ with the mite and the dragon is ours, \/ and a burden in being.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collected and compressed, this volume\u00a0offers proof that Updike is in fact a gifted poet whose verse should not be ignored. He displays\u00a0a poetic range that would be impressive even had it come from\u00a0an award-winning poet like Leithauser.\u00a0John Updike\u2019s Selected Poems<\/em> is 320\u00a0pages and cloth bound, with notes on each poem detailing completion date, publication history, and relevant annotations (“Dog’s Death” includes the name of the dog and a remark from Updike about pet deaths). The suggested retail price is $30, but it\u2019s selling for $18.51 at Amazon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2014James Plath<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Updike once told an interviewer, \u201cI began as a writer of light verse, and have tried to carry over into my serious or lyric verse something of the strictness and liveliness of the lesser form.\u201d A man of few … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3140"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3145,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3140\/revisions\/3145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}