Number 10: Frank O'Hara "Today"

Today


Oh! kangaroos, sequins, chocolate sodas!

You really are beautiful! Pearls,

harmonicas, jujubes, aspirins! all

the stuff they’ve always talked about

still makes a poem a surprise!

These things are with us every day

even on beachheads and biers. They

do have meaning. They’re strong as rocks.

--Frank O'Hara


Hap Notes: Doesn't this poem make you want to run around shouting "Frogs! Rhinestones! Cherry soda! Banjos! Licorice! O Bicycles, peaches and glitter glue!" Okay, maybe it's just me that wants to do that. I'm not quite sure why O'Hara (1926-1966) picked these things but I have a few speculations.

O'Hara's writing style, as casual as it often seems, is easy to imitate but hard to equal. While he wrote personal poems, often chronicling his days, his life, his lovers, his friends, they rarely feel so personal that you can't be a part of them as you read. Sometimes reading his poetry is like talking to him on the phone, other times it's like evesdropping as he talks in his sleep or mutters to himself. I have to admit that I did not like O'Hara's poetry when I first read it, but I have fallen hopelessly in love with it as the years pass.

I am forced to (already!) take something back that I said earlier in reference to Kenneth Koch; in O'Hara's case it actually does mean something when one says that his poetry is much like abstract expressionism is in painting. Since O'Hara knew so many painters (and wrote poems about them) in his job as a writer for Art News and as a curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, he comes by it naturally.

This list of stuff in the poem, which first may strike you as refreshingly strange and arbitrary, is well selected. Not only does O'Hara make us appreciate these separate things in a new way by linking them up but he plays on our connotations of the words when we see them. What was the kangaroo in your mind's eye like? Were your pearls on a strand or loose? Plastic harmonica or metal? Separate white aspirin or in a bottle? He's letting the words and you do a bit of the work.

I often imagine O'Hara paging through a magazine or walking down a busy street in New York and picking these items out of ads, from book covers, articles or store windows. He's almost writing an advertisement for the words. Words that follow us to military actions (beach heads) and funerals (biers- a bier is a stand for a coffin.)

We've already illustrated how the words have meaning- think of what you saw when you read them. They really are strong as rocks- your vision of what they are is hard to change, and the phrase is almost an advertising slogan for words. "Nouns, use them all you want- they're strong as rocks! On sale now!" We appreciate that words mean something one at a time or in a list, "hard" words or easy ones, simple things and complex. And don't forget the title- Today!

I wasn't going to use this poem right away but, once I selected it, the darn thing just jumps around like trapped grasshopper until you let it out of the box. So I had to free it early.

Here's a good quote by O'Hara: "It may be that poetry makes life's nebulous events tangible to me and restores their detail; or conversely, that poetry brings forth the intangible quality of incidents which are all too concrete and circumstantial. Or each on specific occasions, or both all the time."

You can find more of his poetry here (although we'll see him again in the course of a year): www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/frank-ohara

Number 9: George Gordon, Lord Byron: "The Destruction of Sennacharib"

The Destruction of Sennacharib

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.




Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,

That host with their banners at sunset were seen:

Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,

That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.




For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;

And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,

And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!




And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,

But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;

And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,

And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.




And there lay the rider distorted and pale,

With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:

And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,

The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.




And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,

And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;

And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,

Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!




--George Gordon Noel, Lord Byron

Hap Notes: This poem has been galloping through my head the last couple of days ever since my dear friend, Anne, said she was reading a book in which Byron (1788-1824) was a character. When this poem comes into your head, you've just got to get it out-it's compelling. There are several reasons why that happens.

Byron wrote this poem as one of a set of verses for "A Selection of Hebrew Melodies" which featured Byron's lyrics and the music of John Braham. The verses are all inspired by the Old Testament and this poem deals with the troops of Sennacherib, King of Assyria (704-681 BC) who was laying siege to Judah.

According to the Bible, Sennacherib's troops were stopped from destroying Jerusalem when an angel of the Lord (Gabriel) smote them in the night. All 185,000 of 'em. Sennacherib (who wasn't even actually there- he was in Egypt or Babylon or someplace, with other troops) says that his troops had Jerusalem surrounded like "a bird in a cage". It is true, however, that his troops did not attack. Sennacherib says that Jerusalem's King Hezekiah came out and gave them a bunch of gold and silver and they left. However it was, Jerusalem was saved from destruction. Sennacherib had his own troubles. He was later murdered by his sons. One assumes there were some family problems.

One of the reasons this poem will stick with you forever (especially if you read it aloud a couple of times, which I encourage) is the galloping rhythm of the poem's meter, anapestic tetrameter (anapests are two weak beats and a strong one.) If the meter rings a bell with you, like a distant childhood memory, I'm not surprised. Dr. Seuss (aka Theodore Geisel) wrote many of his works in the meter including "Yertle the Turtle" and "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas." The meter relentlessly drags you through the poem.

Byron's colorful imagery is no slouch either, the leaves, the spears like the reflection of the stars in the sea of Galilee, the widows of the troops moaning, the silent tents, etc. etc. Byron was a huge fan of Alexander Pope and he used the rhyming couplet, as Pope did, to great effect. The Gustave Dore print, pictured above, is my favorite depiction of the scene. Sorta spooky.

Byron's life is worth a book or two and many more than that have been written about him. He was always in love and it didn't much matter whether it was man or boy or woman or girl. He was a charming and handsome devil, in spite of his club foot, and he usually got his man, or woman, or step-sister (allegedly.) When he took his place in the House of Lords he stood up for the Luddites. He was/is a national hero in Greece for his work for, and financing of, their independence from the Ottoman Empire. He wrote an Armenian dictionary. He was a larger-than-life hero/scoundrel who packed ten lives worth of living into his short 36 years. His poetic output was prolific. He sold tens of thousands of copies of his poetry in an era when that meant something (actually, now that I think on it, that means something now, too.) It's hard not to have a bit of a crush on him, in spite of his flaws which were impressive and legion.

I suppose one could say he was the "rock star" of his era but that belittles his literacy, wit and adventurousness. He pretty much exiled himself from England about eight years before his death because...well, we're not sure. It may have been his sexual appetites which England legally could punish. It may have been his debts. It may have been something else. He confided his autobiography to Thomas Moore and, a month after Byron died, Moore and Byron's publisher burned the manuscript. Hmmmm. There's no doubt Byron had some sort of hell hound on his trail, whatever it was.

He liked to be known as a man of action. He swam the Hellespont, for crying out loud! He has become mythic and, in fact, was quite so in his own time.

Here's a good Byron quote: For truth is always strange; stranger than fiction. (Yep, I believe he said it first- in his poem "Don Juan.")

Here's another: "Man is born passionate of body, but with an innate, though secret tendency, to the love of good in his main-spring of mind. But God help us all! It is at present a sad jar of atoms."

You can find more poetry by Byron here: www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/lord-byron

Number 8: William Stafford "Just Thinking"

Just Thinking

Got up on a cool morning. Leaned out a window.
No cloud, no wind. Air that flowers held
for awhile. Some dove somewhere.

Been on probation most of my life. And
the rest of my life been condemned. So these moments
count for a lot--peace, you know.

Let the bucket of memory down into the well,
bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one
stirring, no plans. Just being there.

This is what the whole thing is about.

- William Stafford





Hap Notes: William Stafford (1914-1993) was born in Kansas although he spent much of his adult life in Oregon teaching English at Lewis and Clark College. His first volume of poetry wasn't published until he was in his late 40s even though he'd been more or less writing one poem per day since the 1940s when he worked for the U.S. Forest Service as a Conscientious Objector during WWII.

His habit was to rise early (4 a.m.!) make a cup of instant coffee and a piece of toast and write until the sun came up. He wrote what he felt, what he remembered, what he saw. Stafford often came up with enchantment. His poems are organic to his thinking; they grow from his thoughts like trees or flowers. Unlike many contemporary and modern poets whose works seem willfully obscure, Stafford seems almost willfully simple.

In the poem, Stafford describes his habit of early morning writing. There's something magical about how Stafford's words (such ordinary words!) fill you with a sense of peacefulness and calm. "Some dove somewhere," like a passing thought as you listen to the morning. Don't take this casual air too lightly though. He didn't say "some crow" or "some jay" or "some cardinal" or "some hawk."

I don't want to ripple the surface of this poem much. Just let it sit with you a while. I do think that Stafford's Midwestern upbringing mixes with the Pacific Northwest in some sort of tribal alchemy, though.

William Stafford's work is something you should take in small doses. When the plain speaking starts to sound flat- stop reading it. The poems chronicle his days and a few days are magical. Put too many of them together and you start to take his simple style for granted.

You know how beautifully delicious vanilla ice cream is, all by itself, on a hot summer day? Maybe it's in a pretty cup. Maybe you're using a really great smooth silver spoon. It slips into your mouth with cool sweet wonder. You can taste that exotic vanilla bean from far-off Madagascar. You can taste the sweet complex frozen cream. Well, if you keep eating it and eating it, it gets less and less satisfying. Where's the chocolate sauce? Where's the cherry? Why aren't there any salted nuts on this? This could really use some M&M's. Reading Stafford's poetry is like that. Don't over-fill yourself or you'll lose the magical sensitive appreciation of it.

He's written a skillion (read: 67) books of poetry and prose. Don't read them all at once. It is unsurprising to know that he was a close friend and collaborator with Robert Bly. His son, Kim Stafford, is a talented poet and essayist also.

Here's a good Stafford quote: "If I am to keep writing, I cannot bother to insist on high standards.... I am following a process that leads so wildly and originally into new territory that no judgment can at the moment be made about values, significance, and so on.... I am headlong to discover."

And another: "Kids: they dance before they learn there isn't anything that isn't music. "

You can find more Stafford here: www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/william-e-stafford

Number 7: Robert Frost "Design"

Design

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, 

On a white heal-all, holding up a moth

Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth -- 

Assorted characters of death and blight

Mixed ready to begin the morning right,

Like the ingredients of a witches' broth --

A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,

And dead wings carried like a paper kite. 



What had that flower to do with being white, 

The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?

What brought the kindred spider to that height, 

Then steered the white moth thither in the night? 

What but design of darkness to appall?--

If design govern in a thing so small.

-- Robert Frost


Hap Notes: Robert Frost (1874-1963) was a cantankerous, sad-hearted, thorny, brilliant old jester and if you've been reading him as a pleasant pastoral poet of the Northeast go no farther. I don't want to spoil your pleasure. He's possibly my favorite American poet and that's saying something.

Everything he stands for in the popular culture is wrong. He was not a native New England farmer-- he was born and raised in San Francisco, and later, in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He wasn't anywhere near a farm until he was in his late 20's. He did write many of his poems as he worked on a farm his grandpa gave him. His neighbors said that he was a terrible farmer, by the way. He was not a neat and organized man of the soil. Even in his old age, when visitors would come to his house, they would see chickens hanging around in the living room and the kitchen. So scratch that idyllic farmer guy out of your head completely.

He was a highly intelligent, wryly funny, observer of nature, however. That much is true. And he really did mend stone walls. He saw things in New England that vibrated with his soul. I'll give you that. Frost's poems are often a bit like mystic rhyming riddles and they're often about the forces of life and death.

This particular poem is a Petrarchan Sonnet and the form is important because generally they deal with love that is frustratingly unattainable. Usually the first eight lines (the octave) describe a situation and the last six (the sestet) go about trying to solve it.

So this sonnet is pretty darn scary.

First, look at the soft and lovely words he uses to describe this scene- dimpled (how cute!), innocent, heal-all, satin, froth, snow-drop and the childlike connotations of the word "kite." When he pairs them up with hard words liked "rigid" and "witches" and "dead wings" the dark words even get softened a bit- or are they darkened? He's just describing what seems like a strange coincidence. The heal-all is an anomaly (the blue flower in the picture above is a heal-all), they are normally blue. It's a plant that has been used for years to cure a variety of ailments, hence its name. He sells us on the idea that this is a very odd coincidence.

Now he goes in for the kill.

How did this happen? Is there some force at work which created this little scene? Is there some "intelligent design" behind this? Who created all this to let it happen? If it is just happenstance, what does that say about the universe? If it's something bigger, then why? If this is intelligent design- this little scene of white death- what does that say about God? Frost doesn't need to scare us with witches (who make light "broth") and Satan. He's scaring us with the question, "What kind of twisted God or universe does this?" What is this "dark design?"

And then, in the last line, he winks at us, the old goat! He backs off a little and lets us breathe. Maybe there's no design here at all. He's just askin'. But it's too late because the terrifying truth is that we don't actually know if there's a designer here or not. Both the presence and the absence of a designer in this anomalous scene are equally scary. And as for unattainable love? How does that relate to the poem?

How's that for a little "harmless'' poem about nature, eh?

Lest you think I'm making all this up I'll refer you to the critic Lionel Trilling. At Frost's 85th birthday party (in 1959- so this isn't late breaking news or anything) he stood up and said, "I have to say that my Frost...is not the Frost who reassures us by his affirmations of old virtues, simplicities, pieties and ways of feeling: anything but..I think of Robert Frost as a terrifying poet... read the poem "Design" and see if you sleep the better for it."

Frost was delighted by this. He loved Trilling's brass and said to him "You weren't there to sing 'Happy Birthday, dear Robert' and I don't mind being made controversial. No sweeter music can come down to my ears than the clash of arms over my dead body when I am down."

He wasn't crestfallen at being misunderstood and he might even have been relieved that somebody saw through the mask. Somebody got the joke, the work, the searching, lonely, scorched soul underneath the poetry.

Frost's life, by the way, was filled with heartache and tragedy. His dad died when he was 8, he had to commit his sister to a mental institution (his mother was already dead by then), he was hereditarily prone to depression and his wife suffered from it, too. They had one child die of cholera, one child who only lived three days, one child was committed to a mental institution and another child committed suicide. His wife died in 1938 so he spent almost 30 years with no partner. Only two of his six children out-lived him and one of them was in a mental health facility. He came by his wry views pretty naturally, one assumes.

You can find more Frost here, although I'm not nearly done with him for this blog, just hang onto your hat- this isn't his most terrifying poem by a long shot: /www.ketzle.com/frost/

Here's a nice Frost quote: "It is absurd to think that the only way to tell if a poem is lasting is to wait and see if it lasts. The right reader of a good poem can tell the moment it strikes him that he has taken an immortal wound—that he will never get over it."

And here's another: "Poetry begins in trivial metaphors, pretty metaphors, "grace" metaphors, and goes on to the profoundest thinking that we have. Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another. People say, "Why don’t you say what you mean?" We never do that, do we, being all of us too much poets. We like to talk in parables and in hints and in indirections — whether from diffidence or some other instinct."

Number 6: Adrienne Rich "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers"

Aunt Jennifer's Tigers

Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen,
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.

Aunt Jennifer's fingers fluttering through her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand.

When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

--Adrienne Rich

Hap Notes: Adrienne Rich (born 1929) has had a life that both reflects and has influenced the 20th century in a variety of ways. She's gone from gifted scholar to wife to mother to political activist to divorcee' to more activism to lesbian to even more activism to venerated poet in the course of her life so far. She lives in Northern California somewhere and she still writes. Some of her essays from the 90s are, to me, some of her finest work.

This poem is from her first book, A Change of World, which was selected by W.H. Auden in 1951 for the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. She was in her early 20s when she wrote it. Critics often see reverberations in this poem of what she was later to do in life. It's easy to hear the rumblings of that, now, though, since we know her history and ours. I believe it's possibly one of her most famous poems.

One's heart aches for Aunt Jennifer, doesn't it? Here's a woman, using the traditional feminine art of needlepoint or embroidery, stitching a panel of harmless men and sleek tigers. Her hands are fluttering and terrified, more than likely from fear and the dull stresses of her life and Uncle, whose wedding band weighs heavily on her hand. If you wear a wedding band, you know that you don't even think of its weight much, it becomes part of you. Not Aunt Jennifer- it is part of the "ordeals she was mastered by."

Many analysts say her stitched tigers are males and that this makes it a poem of hopelessness because she's still sewing male domination in a male dominated role. I think this is hogwash. Why can't Aunt Jennifer want to be a tiger herself, pulling the thread with that difficult needle made from a tusk of a bull elephant, creating a vibrant coat-of-arms for herself, if, even in her own imagination? Does a tiger have to have a sex to be ferocious, sleek and frightening? If you came across a female tiger do you think she's any the less wild or assertive? Those pacing tigers who fear no men, why can't they be female? And if you don't think they can be female and be chivalrous, now who's being dominated by men? Look up the word "denizen" and read all the definitions. Just throwin' this intepretation out there for some air.

Anyhow, my ranting aside, if she isn't fantasizing about being a tiger (which is something I would do, so I'm projecting) then she is stitching males who are "chivalrous" and "unafraid." One doesn't suppose Uncle to be either of those things. The ivory needle is probably the easiest one to pull, and yet she has trouble with it. Aunt Jennifer is still "ringed" (and embroidery has a ring, too, doesn't it?) even in death, with her ordeals. So, I suppose the interpretation is that the males (tigers) are still in charge, prancing away on the needlepoint panel. And she's trapped in the rings.

I like to think of it in a different way- that her subverted fantasized defiance lives on in her art. And that somebody like you or me or the poet, sees it and won't let it happen any more. Our hearts beat with hers a little as we think on her life. Just as all poets thoughts live on in their poems.

So my interpretation of the poem is a little outside the norm, I guess. Don't use my interpretation if you are writing a term paper. Just warning you. You may see the poem differently. Either way you look at it, it's a fine poem.

Every time I go out on a limb with an interpretation I am reminded of a graduate class I took on Satire. We were reading Jean Genet's The Balcony and none of the students wanted to make a comment on it for fear of being wrong. I, on the other hand, have no fear of stupidity having so much of it as I do, so I stood up and gave my half-baked theory on the play which ran something along the lines of 'the characters are just trapped by their own perceptions of things'. The professor looked at me and said "You are 100% WRONG." I still think the characters in the play are goofs, one and all. And I am comfortable in my wrongness. So it is with this poem, also. Feel happily free to disagree with me.

Here's a great Rich quote (and they are legion): "The woman I needed to call my mother was silenced before I was born. "

One more: "Poetry is above all a concentration of the power of language, which is the power of our ultimate relationship to everything in the universe. "

You can find more Adrienne Rich poetry here:www.americanpoems.com/poets/adrienne_rich

Number 5: Kenneth Koch "To The Roman Forum"

TO THE ROMAN FORUM

After my daughter Katherine was born
I was terribly excited
I think I would have been measured at the twenty-five-espresso mark
We—Janice, now Katherine, and I—were in Rome
(Janice gave birth at the international hospital on top of Trastevere)
I went down and sat and looked at the ruins of you
I gazed at them, gleaming in the half-night
And thought, Oh my, My God, My goodness, a child, a wife.
While I was sitting there, a friend, a sculptor, came by
I just had a baby, I said. I mean Janice did. I'm—
I thought I'd look at some very old great things
To match up with this new one. Oh, Adya said,
I guess you'd like to be alone, then. Congratulations. Goodnight.
Thank you. Goodnight, I said. Adya departed.
Next day I saw Janice and Katherine.
Here they are again and have nothing to do with you
A pure force swept through me another time
I am here, they are here, this has happened.
It is happening now, it happened then.

- Kenneth Koch

Hap Notes: Well, first of all, when you buy a volume of Kenneth Koch's (1925-2002) poems and you open it up and start reading, you may feel as though you've been tossed into an ocean full of LSD-laced Kool-Aid and Pop Rocks. He's so effusive and spontaneous and joyous and thoughtful and it all goes to your head in a dizzying rush. So I've selected an a much shorter poem than is typical of his work.

Koch (pronounced "coke" you may be relieved to know) is part of a loose conglomeration of poets known as the "New York School" of poetry which included Frank O'Hara and John Ashberry. I say, loose, because there's really not much that holds the "school" together save for a certain enthusiasm for life and the arts. They were really more crocheted together than knit. The group was familiar with lots of visual artists (Larry Rivers, Grace Hartigan et al) partly thanks to O'Hara's work at Art News and the Museum of Modern Art. They're sort of the poets of abstract expressionism which, when you start really thinking about it, doesn't tell you a hell of a lot.

Koch's writing leaps and bounds with energy. He's everywhere at once, standing on a table shouting, sitting next to you on the couch whispering, up in the attic rummaging around, passing you a secret note under the table, down the street bleating out his joy and sorrows (mostly joy.) His emotions fly along the top of every poem.

Even in these few lines you can hear how energetically moved he is; living in Rome, having a child, meeting a friend, sitting in front of the Roman Forum; he feels like he's had 25 espressos, this rich life is happening now! To him! Remember that the poem is addressed to the oldest and most famous place in the world for people to congregate. He's writing an excited postcard to civilization past and present. In the midst of these ruins he's contemplating new life- not just for the child-- for him, his wife, the world. The baby has already become a part of "we."

His sculptor friend wisely sees that he needs to be alone. But Koch himself is never alone, the parade of life from the past to the future engulfs him as he writes his postcard. There's a tang in this poem of knowing that while he is the father and had something to do with the child (maybe a part of that "pure force") it was his wife who had the baby, they are also separate from him in the midst of his loving joy. And all the people who ever crossed the pavement at the forum got there the same way. There's a loving wonder in the poem that never fails to move me.

Koch was an enthusiastic teacher of poetry and his book Making Your Own Days is a tremendous help for understanding the pure pleasure of reading and writing poetry. His poetry is personal in that he often addresses people in his life but he wants to share it with the page and you. His joyous rantings are often difficult to absorb unless you just let the images flow into you and sort them out later. By the by, as wacky and madcap as he may seem when you read his work, don't forget that he had a Ph.D. from Columbia University. He taught literature there for forty some-odd years. He may seem like a crack-pot jack-in-the-box when you read his stream-of consciousness multi-hued rivers but he knew a ponderous lot about literature.

The best part about Koch, though, is that whatever your interpretation of a poem is, he'd be overjoyed that you saw anything at all. He was never sealed up about interpretation with a set of harsh disciplines with which to judge it. He is always saying yes, you may have a point, yes, I see that, yes you might have something there, yes. Yes.

You can find more of Koch's poems here: www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/kenneth-koch

Here's what he says at the beginning of Making Your Own Days : "Poetry is often regarded as a mystery, and in some respects it is one. No one is quite sure where poetry comes from, no one is quite sure exactly what it is, and no one knows, really, how anyone is able to write it."

Number 4: John Updike "Thoughts While Driving Home"

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”?


Hap Notes: Since it's the weekend, I thought I'd bring you to a party or, at least, the drive home from one.

John Updike (1932-2009) needs no introduction to the literate. I love Updike's poetry and while I'm not a huge fan of his novels, reading the criticisms Harold Bloom and Gore Vidal heap upon his books always put me in the uncomfortable position of feeling defensive for someone I'm not so crazy about. His writing prowess is above reproach. I'm just not fond of his middle-class characters- they wouldn't like me either. You might be surprised to learn that he originally wanted to be an artist or a cartoonist. Updike was also a thoughtful literary critic.

The poem turns in on itself- it is amusingly clever and self conscious. It reeks of a highly literate social gathering in the 50s with cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. In the mind's eye men in suits and women in chic cocktail dresses and spiky heels are all making with the bon mots and hitting on each other surrounded by sleek Raymond Loewy furniture as they listen to a John Coltrane record- maybe "Blue Train." The insecurity that hits one after attending a party full of people you would like to impress is perfectly nailed and also, the amused silliness of wanting to do so. It makes you laugh and feel sheepish. By the way, don't try using that Kierkegaard line now to pick up chicks. Just sayin'. Unless you think they know this poem.

I dug this poem out of my battered and cranky copy of "The Carpentered Hen and Other Tame Creatures; Telephone Poles and Other Poems" that I bought with babysitting money when I was a sophomore in high school for 60¢ (the price is on the cover) at a bookstore in downtown St. Paul. I felt as sophisticated as that 50's party when I bought it. Which now strikes me as amusing and self-consciously effete. Which loops us right back to the poem.

One of my favorite short stories,"A&P," is by Updike. You can find it here: www.tiger-town.com/whatnot/updike/

Heres a good Updike quote on aging: " Now that I am sixty, I see why the idea of elder wisdom has passed from currency."

And another: "I recently read Vanity Fair at long last. Here I am, 70-odd years old, and I never read Vanity Fair! In a way that is the most enjoyable, when you put yourself to school with an old classic."

And one more: "I did write a lot of light verse, and even some verse that wasn't too light. Even I knew there was no living in being a poet, so fiction was the game."