{"id":4822,"date":"2019-07-05T10:17:43","date_gmt":"2019-07-05T15:17:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/?p=4822"},"modified":"2019-07-05T10:17:43","modified_gmt":"2019-07-05T15:17:43","slug":"david-lehman-suggests-an-updike-writing-exercise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2019\/07\/05\/david-lehman-suggests-an-updike-writing-exercise\/","title":{"rendered":"David Lehman suggests an Updike writing exercise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/files\/2017\/03\/John-Updike-Couples-197x300.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-3772\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/files\/2017\/03\/John-Updike-Couples-197x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"197\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>&#8220;I have long felt that verse can serve as the right vehicle for a mini-essay prompted by a provocative thought in the form of an aphorism,&#8221; <strong>David Lehman<\/strong> begins his &#8220;Next Line, Please&#8221; brief for <em>The American Scholar<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Using a quote from Updike, he challenges readers to take up the pen.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In John Updike&#8217;s novel <em>Couples<\/em>, the narrator states, <strong>&#8216;Every marriage tends to consist of an aristocrat and a peasant.&#8217;<\/strong> Leaving aside the context\u2014the very real possibility that the sentence is meant to apply primarily to the characters in the book\u2014<strong>consider this thought as the trigger for either (1) a short essay in verse or (2) a dialogue in verse.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Lehman notes that permission is required for &#8220;reprinting, reproducing, or other uses.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the link to Lehman&#8217;s\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/theamericanscholar.org\/updike-on-couples\/#.XR9X23t7nIF\">&#8220;Updike on Couples.&#8221;<\/a> Lehman&#8217;s most recent book is <em>Playlist<\/em>, published in the Pitt Poetry Series this past April. Here&#8217;s the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Playlist-Poetry-Mr-David-Lehman\/dp\/0822965844\/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=david+lehman&amp;qid=1562335882&amp;s=books&amp;sr=1-1\">Amazon link<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;I have long felt that verse can serve as the right vehicle for a mini-essay prompted by a provocative thought in the form of an aphorism,&#8221; David Lehman begins his &#8220;Next Line, Please&#8221; brief for The American Scholar. Using a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2019\/07\/05\/david-lehman-suggests-an-updike-writing-exercise\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":818,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-person-singular","category-updike-quoted"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4822","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\/818"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4822"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4823,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4822\/revisions\/4823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}