Updike found mastery within the short story. His novels, though flawed, are nevertheless always good reading. His poetry, uber- witty and urbane, rarely (but sometimes) rises to the level of the clever, insightful, gifted vision of the schoolboy and scholar that always, from his strongest work sprung forth. This thin volume of poems, a follow-up to the more playful 'Midpoint' (1969), he wrote when he knew he was dying. The final poem to his wife, "For Martha, On Her Birthday After Her Cataract Operation," is at once sad and joyous, - as, with the gift of his prose, he often made this humble reader:

My blue-eyed beauty, now you see
Through plastic sharply, courtesy
Of Dr. Saintly Shingleton
And all his green-clad crew, who spun
Their miracle, ten minutes' worth,
In time to celebrate your birth
In fine detail; O Martha mine
Come count your candles: sixty nine
- No more, no less - alight upon
A cake of love from your own
John