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The poetry of American novelist John Updike

Two for January

  • January
  • The days are short, 
  • The sun a spark, 
  • Hung thin between 
  • The dark and dark. 
  • Fat snowy footsteps 
  • Track the floor. 
  • Milk bottles burst 
  • Outside the door.
  • The river is 
  • A frozen place 
  • Held still beneath 
  • The trees of lace.
  • The sky is low. 
  • The wind is gray. 
  • The radiator 
  • Purrs all day.
  • Penumbrae
  • The shadows have their seasons, too. 
  • The feathery web the budding maples 
  • cast down upon the sullen lawn
  • bears but a faint relation to 
  • high summer’s umbrageous weight 
  • and tunnellike continuum—
  • black leached from green, deep pools 
  • wherein a globe of gnats revolves 
  • as airy as an astrolabe.
  • The thinning shade of autumn is 
  • an inherited Oriental, 
  • red worn to pink, nap worn to thread.
  • Shadows on snow look blue. The skier, 
  • exultant at the summit, sees his poles 
  • elongate toward the valley: thus
  • each blade of grass projects another 
  • opposite the sun, and in marshes 
  • the mesh is infinite,
  • as the winged eclipse an eagle in flight 
  • drags across the desert floor 
  • is infinitesimal.
  • And shadows on water!— 
  • the beech bough bent to the speckled lake 
  • where silt motes flicker gold,
  • or the steel dock underslung 
  • with a submarine that trembles, 
  • its ladder stiffened by air.
  • And loveliest, because least looked-for, 
  • gray on gray, the stripes 
  • the pearl-white winter sun
  • hung low beneath the leafless wood 
  • draws out from trunk to trunk across the road 
  • like a stairway that does not rise.
John Updike

John Updike (1932-2009) was an American novelist, short-story writer and poet who was generally best known in that order of avocations. His fiction earned him several awards, including twice being awarded the Pulitzer Prize; he is well known as one of the mainstays of short fiction and poetry in The New Yorker. With more than 20 novels to his name—Updike wrote on average, one book a year—he is considered one of the premiere American writers of this time. He also published eight books of poetry – including his first published book, The Carpentered Hen (1958). Although he began writing poetry in a lighter vein, the whimsical elements were carried over into his more series verse as his talent developed. His poetry is marked by both a precision of language and metaphysical depth, both harkening to the likes of such 17th-century poets as John Donne and George Herbert.

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Two poems by Marvin Bell

“To Dorothy” and “The Self and the Mulberry”
  • January
  • The days are short, 
  • The sun a spark, 
  • Hung thin between 
  • The dark and dark. 
  • Fat snowy footsteps 
  • Track the floor. 
  • Milk bottles burst 
  • Outside the door.
  • The river is 
  • A frozen place 
  • Held still beneath 
  • The trees of lace.
  • The sky is low. 
  • The wind is gray. 
  • The radiator 
  • Purrs all day.
  • Penumbrae
  • The shadows have their seasons, too. 
  • The feathery web the budding maples 
  • cast down upon the sullen lawn
  • bears but a faint relation to 
  • high summer’s umbrageous weight 
  • and tunnellike continuum—
  • black leached from green, deep pools 
  • wherein a globe of gnats revolves 
  • as airy as an astrolabe.
  • The thinning shade of autumn is 
  • an inherited Oriental, 
  • red worn to pink, nap worn to thread.
  • Shadows on snow look blue. The skier, 
  • exultant at the summit, sees his poles 
  • elongate toward the valley: thus
  • each blade of grass projects another 
  • opposite the sun, and in marshes 
  • the mesh is infinite,
  • as the winged eclipse an eagle in flight 
  • drags across the desert floor 
  • is infinitesimal.
  • And shadows on water!— 
  • the beech bough bent to the speckled lake 
  • where silt motes flicker gold,
  • or the steel dock underslung 
  • with a submarine that trembles, 
  • its ladder stiffened by air.
  • And loveliest, because least looked-for, 
  • gray on gray, the stripes 
  • the pearl-white winter sun
  • hung low beneath the leafless wood 
  • draws out from trunk to trunk across the road 
  • like a stairway that does not rise.
John Updike

John Updike (1932-2009) was an American novelist, short-story writer and poet who was generally best known in that order of avocations. His fiction earned him several awards, including twice being awarded the Pulitzer Prize; he is well known as one of the mainstays of short fiction and poetry in The New Yorker. With more than 20 novels to his name—Updike wrote on average, one book a year—he is considered one of the premiere American writers of this time. He also published eight books of poetry – including his first published book, The Carpentered Hen (1958). Although he began writing poetry in a lighter vein, the whimsical elements were carried over into his more series verse as his talent developed. His poetry is marked by both a precision of language and metaphysical depth, both harkening to the likes of such 17th-century poets as John Donne and George Herbert.

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Laurence Juber, Train Song Festival, Ancient Echoes: 10,000 Years of Beer

Events November 8-November 9, 2024
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