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Collected Poems: 1953-1993
The earliest poems here date from 1953, when Updike was 21, and the last were written after he turned 60. All 70 previously published poems are included in this book, with some revisions made. Arranged in chronological order, the book also includes notes which discuss some of the hidden threads in each poem. All the poems reflect Updike's recurring themes of confession, nostalgia, anxiety and awe.
416 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
September 9, 2018
There's a photo on the back of this poetry collection of John Updike, wearing an expensive suit, lifting a sophisticated looking tea cup to his mouth. What a handsome devil.
What a devil.
You don't fool anyone, John. Those of us who have lifted our figurative skirts to you know what you are. . . a wolf in sheep's clothing.
And, in case it's unclear, may I refer the reader to some of the following poems in this 40 year compilation?
Cunts
Confront the Cunt
Klimt and Schiele Confront the Cunt
Mouse Sex
Elderly Sex
No More Access to Her Underpants
Well, that's about the worst of it. So now you know. But, don't be too hard on John; as much as he liked to talk dirty in your ear, he was just a big old scaredy cat. Fraidy cat, scared to death of. . . death. Scared of religion. Scared of rejection. Scared people would think he wasn't smart, talented or cute.
I have suspected his insecurities for years, but, as his unpaid and unacknowledged biographer, I couldn't exactly prove it. So, I smiled when I stumbled upon his Thoughts While Driving Home:
Was I clever enough? Was I charming?
Did I make at least one good pun?
Was I disconcerting? Disarming?
Was I wise? Was I wan? Was I fun?
Did I answer that girl with white shoulders
Correctly, or should I have said
(Engagingly), “Kierkegaard smolders,”
But Eliot's ashes are dead?”
And did I, while being a smarty,
Yet some wry reserve slyly keep,
So they murmured, when I'd left the party,
“He's deep. He's deep. He's deep?”
I knew it! He was just as damn scared at the rest of us. He just thought he needed to be so erudite, so sophisticated, so self-assured.
He only dabbled in verse anyway as “the highest kind of verbal exercise” while he was writing his prose. You know, the important stuff.
And yet, his poetry is pretty damn good.
Well, much of it. Not all of it. Let's just say. . . it's good when he lets go.
Embraces sensation and ignores reputation:
Sunday Rain
The window screen
is trying to do
its crossword puzzle
but appears to know
only vertical words.
Flirt
The flirt is an antelope of flame,
igniting the plain
wherever she hesitates.
She kisses my wrist, waits,
and watches the flush of pride
absurdly kindle my eyes.
She talks in riddles,
exposes her middle,
is hard and strange in my arms:
I love her. Her charms
are those of a fine old book with half-cut pages,
bound in warm plush at her white neck's nape.
Sunflower
Sunflower, of flowers
the most lonely,
yardstick of hours,
long-term stander
in empty spaces,
shunner of bowers,
indolent bender
seldom, in only
the sharpest of showers:
tell us, why
is it your face is
a snarl of jet swirls
and gold arrows, a burning
old lion face high
in a cornflower sky,
yet by turning
your head we find
you wear a girl's
bonnet behind?
The part of me that feels like a sunflower this weekend honors the part of John Updike that felt like one, too.
All great writing comes from that part of the flower.
What a devil.
You don't fool anyone, John. Those of us who have lifted our figurative skirts to you know what you are. . . a wolf in sheep's clothing.
And, in case it's unclear, may I refer the reader to some of the following poems in this 40 year compilation?
Cunts
Confront the Cunt
Klimt and Schiele Confront the Cunt
Mouse Sex
Elderly Sex
No More Access to Her Underpants
Well, that's about the worst of it. So now you know. But, don't be too hard on John; as much as he liked to talk dirty in your ear, he was just a big old scaredy cat. Fraidy cat, scared to death of. . . death. Scared of religion. Scared of rejection. Scared people would think he wasn't smart, talented or cute.
I have suspected his insecurities for years, but, as his unpaid and unacknowledged biographer, I couldn't exactly prove it. So, I smiled when I stumbled upon his Thoughts While Driving Home:
Was I clever enough? Was I charming?
Did I make at least one good pun?
Was I disconcerting? Disarming?
Was I wise? Was I wan? Was I fun?
Did I answer that girl with white shoulders
Correctly, or should I have said
(Engagingly), “Kierkegaard smolders,”
But Eliot's ashes are dead?”
And did I, while being a smarty,
Yet some wry reserve slyly keep,
So they murmured, when I'd left the party,
“He's deep. He's deep. He's deep?”
I knew it! He was just as damn scared at the rest of us. He just thought he needed to be so erudite, so sophisticated, so self-assured.
He only dabbled in verse anyway as “the highest kind of verbal exercise” while he was writing his prose. You know, the important stuff.
And yet, his poetry is pretty damn good.
Well, much of it. Not all of it. Let's just say. . . it's good when he lets go.
Embraces sensation and ignores reputation:
Sunday Rain
The window screen
is trying to do
its crossword puzzle
but appears to know
only vertical words.
Flirt
The flirt is an antelope of flame,
igniting the plain
wherever she hesitates.
She kisses my wrist, waits,
and watches the flush of pride
absurdly kindle my eyes.
She talks in riddles,
exposes her middle,
is hard and strange in my arms:
I love her. Her charms
are those of a fine old book with half-cut pages,
bound in warm plush at her white neck's nape.
Sunflower
Sunflower, of flowers
the most lonely,
yardstick of hours,
long-term stander
in empty spaces,
shunner of bowers,
indolent bender
seldom, in only
the sharpest of showers:
tell us, why
is it your face is
a snarl of jet swirls
and gold arrows, a burning
old lion face high
in a cornflower sky,
yet by turning
your head we find
you wear a girl's
bonnet behind?
The part of me that feels like a sunflower this weekend honors the part of John Updike that felt like one, too.
All great writing comes from that part of the flower.
September 30, 2021
Upstairs to my downstairs
echo to my silence
you walk through my veins shopping
and spin food from my sleep
I hear your small noises
you hide in closets without handles
you surprise me from the cellar
your foot-soles bright black
You slip in and out of beauty
and imply that nothing is wrong
Who sent you?
What is your assignment?
Though years sneak by like children
you stay as unaccountable
as the underwear set to soak
in the bowl where I brush my teeth
----
Plump mate to my head, you alone absorb,
through your cotton skin, the thoughts behind my bone
skin of skull. When I weep, you grow damp.
When I turn, you comply. In the dark,
you are my only friend, the only kiss
my cheek receives. You are my bowl of dreams.
Your underside is cool, like a second chance,
like a little leap into the air when I turn
you over. Though you would smother me,
properly applied, you are, like the world
with its rotating mass, all I have. You accept
the strange night with me, and are depressed
when the morning discloses your wrinkles.
----
On an olive beach, beneath a torquoise sky
And a limeade sun, by a lurid sea,
While the beryl clouds went blithly by,
We ensconced ourselves, my love and me.
O her verdant hair! and her aqua smile!
O my soul, afloat in an emerald bliss
That retained its tint all the watery while—
And her copper skin, all verdigris!
----
This porthole overlooks a sea
Forever falling from the sky,
The water inextricably
Involved with buttons, suds, and dye.
Like bits of shrapnel, shards of foam
Fly heavenward; a bedsheet heaves,
A stocking wrestles with a comb,
And cotton angels wave their sleeves.
The boiling purgatorial tide
Resolves our dreary shorts and slips,
While Mother coolly bakes beside
Her little jugged apocalypse.
February 18, 2008
Mr. Updike, must you be good at everything? And must you make it look so easy? Okay, so this is a bit of a mixed bag, but I love the mix! I love the lyrical, the profound, and even the merely (?) clever. The latter is utterly charming.
And on the hardcover edition there's a black and white portrait of you sipping tea from a tea cup. You're not fooling anyone, of course, you crusty old hound, but I've always had mad skillz when it comes to willing suspension of disbelief.
And on the hardcover edition there's a black and white portrait of you sipping tea from a tea cup. You're not fooling anyone, of course, you crusty old hound, but I've always had mad skillz when it comes to willing suspension of disbelief.
November 29, 2018
Updike died in 2009 so obviously 16 years worth of poems (assuming he wrote some) are missing. It's a collection of several hundred short poems, including a separate section titled "light verse." In one of Updike's essay, "Boyhood in the Forties" (Updike was born in l932, died in 2009), he wrote the following:
"To transcribe middleness with all it grits, bumps, and anonymities, in its fullness of satisfaction and mystery: is it possible or, in view of the suffering that violently colors the periphery and at all moments threatens to move into the center, worth doing? Possibly not but the horse-chestnut trees, the telephone poles, the porches, the green hedges recede to a calm point that in my subjective geography is still the center of the world."
True, he wasn't writing exclusively about poetry, but I think this statement about finding the ordinary and common experiences that all of us know, is at the heart of much of his poetry. I noted some poems that I liked, ones about "Tao in the Yankee Stadium Bleachers" with a comment about it not being necessary to seek out a wasteland, swamp or thicket. They're all around us, no need for a pilgrimage.
Every one ages and dies, and the passage of time is much on Updike's mind, "The Judgment Day seems nigh to every age; But History yawns and turns another page,. . . Our green-clad mother spreads her legs . . . begs for pestilence to fuck her if he can." A demonstration of his ironical bent which doubles back and laughs, or at least smirks, at its learned observations. Another example: "Adulthood has its comforts; these entail sermons and sex and receipts of the mail. Mock epic: "Golfers [are] One-gloved beasts in cleats. . ." "The countries we depart will make their way without us. The Swedes will rise tomorrow, brush their teeth, and go about their business." Could be an ironic comment on the importance of his writing.
And there's his outrageously challenging "shit" poem which is about as close to "middleness" or to the earthly center of all people's lives as you can get; "The Beautiful Bowel Movement." It begins,
Though most of them aren't much to write about
mere squibs and nubs, like half-smoked pale cigars,
the tint and stink recalling Tuesday's meal,
the texture loose and soon dissolved - this one,
struck off in solitude one afternoon
. . .
was yet a masterpiece, a flowless 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.
Updike was prolific, better known for his novels, secondarily for his essays and poetry. Will he be remembered for his poetry as well as his other writings? Who knows, but from that abundance of words that poured out of him, there are a few gems, and this is one of them.
"To transcribe middleness with all it grits, bumps, and anonymities, in its fullness of satisfaction and mystery: is it possible or, in view of the suffering that violently colors the periphery and at all moments threatens to move into the center, worth doing? Possibly not but the horse-chestnut trees, the telephone poles, the porches, the green hedges recede to a calm point that in my subjective geography is still the center of the world."
True, he wasn't writing exclusively about poetry, but I think this statement about finding the ordinary and common experiences that all of us know, is at the heart of much of his poetry. I noted some poems that I liked, ones about "Tao in the Yankee Stadium Bleachers" with a comment about it not being necessary to seek out a wasteland, swamp or thicket. They're all around us, no need for a pilgrimage.
Every one ages and dies, and the passage of time is much on Updike's mind, "The Judgment Day seems nigh to every age; But History yawns and turns another page,. . . Our green-clad mother spreads her legs . . . begs for pestilence to fuck her if he can." A demonstration of his ironical bent which doubles back and laughs, or at least smirks, at its learned observations. Another example: "Adulthood has its comforts; these entail sermons and sex and receipts of the mail. Mock epic: "Golfers [are] One-gloved beasts in cleats. . ." "The countries we depart will make their way without us. The Swedes will rise tomorrow, brush their teeth, and go about their business." Could be an ironic comment on the importance of his writing.
And there's his outrageously challenging "shit" poem which is about as close to "middleness" or to the earthly center of all people's lives as you can get; "The Beautiful Bowel Movement." It begins,
Though most of them aren't much to write about
mere squibs and nubs, like half-smoked pale cigars,
the tint and stink recalling Tuesday's meal,
the texture loose and soon dissolved - this one,
struck off in solitude one afternoon
. . .
was yet a masterpiece, a flowless 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.
Updike was prolific, better known for his novels, secondarily for his essays and poetry. Will he be remembered for his poetry as well as his other writings? Who knows, but from that abundance of words that poured out of him, there are a few gems, and this is one of them.
April 15, 2013
A fun read by an author who will undoubtedly be remembered in posterity more for his novels than his poetry. But this collection includes one of the best poems ever written about human feces, "The Beautiful Bowel Movement". And as that poem can be found online, I will instead include Updike's poem, "Camera", here in this review....one of the best poems ever written about photography:
Camera
Let me gaze, gaze forever
into that single, vaguely violet eye:
my fingertips dilate
the veiled pupil circumscribed
by crescent leaves of metal
overlapping, fine as foil, and oiled.
Let me walk, walk with its weight
as telling as gold, declaring
precious works packed tight:
the air is light,
all light, pure light alive
with the possibility of capture.
Let all, all be still until
the cleaver falls: I become female,
having sealed secure
in the quick clicked womb of utter black, bright semen
of a summer day, coiled fruit
of my eyes' axed rapture.
Camera
Let me gaze, gaze forever
into that single, vaguely violet eye:
my fingertips dilate
the veiled pupil circumscribed
by crescent leaves of metal
overlapping, fine as foil, and oiled.
Let me walk, walk with its weight
as telling as gold, declaring
precious works packed tight:
the air is light,
all light, pure light alive
with the possibility of capture.
Let all, all be still until
the cleaver falls: I become female,
having sealed secure
in the quick clicked womb of utter black, bright semen
of a summer day, coiled fruit
of my eyes' axed rapture.
Read
August 3, 2011Updike couldn't resist the urge to make a collection he had to know he would make immediately incomplete by his continuing output. So paves the way for a Final Collected poems, probably next year, after Knopf finishes with the 3 or 4 books he scheduled this year, just before he died. Anyway, it benefits by combining them thematically and if you cannot find his earlier collections, here you go.
June 30, 2010
I don't recall much about this book, but I beleive I read it cover to cover. Just as - CS Lewis, the Little House books that my mom read me, and the BFG that my 4th grade teacher read to us - were the impetus for my love of literature, this book ignited my interest in poetry.
Read
May 13, 2007A collection of poetry that is daring, experimental, thought-provoking, and evocative. As sublimely vulgar as it is underrated.
October 23, 2008
A comfort when the world seems tasteless.
June 25, 2013
Forty years of poetry in one volume by an important writer and poet. An incredible collection of work! Love Updike's wit.
July 24, 2013
I love this collection! I think I have read pretty much every poem in it but I often just snag it off the shelf and flip throuhat random. My absolute favorite is "Roman Portrait Busts".
January 3, 2015
A modern master. I keep this book next to my kitchen table and enjoy his reflections often.
November 29, 2011
AMAZING, amazing poet.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews