Endpoint and Other Poems

John Updike's "Endpoint and Other Poems" was published posthumously last year, after a long and stellar writing career. Some of these poems were written in the last year of his life, some even in the last month.The volume is divided into four sections: Endpoint, which are a series of birthday poems he wrote for himself between 2002 and 2008, along with poems written in the hospital as he was dying; Other Poems, an eclectic group whose subjects range from stolen paintings and singer Frankie Lane to doo wop and an elegy for golfer Payne Stewart; Sonnets, which cover music, places and people both real and imagined; and Light and Personal, which include poems on country music and his wife on her birthday.A selection from the birthday poem for 2008, "Spirit of '76," written in Tucson, Arizona, gives a sense of the Endpoint poems:Here in this place of arid clarity,two thousand miles from my souvenirscollect a cozy dust, the piled produceof bald ambition pulling ignorama,I see clear through to the ultimate page,the silence I dared break for my small time.No piece was easy, but each fell finished,in its shroud of print, into a book-shaped hole.And from "Baseball:"...football can be learned,and basketball finessed, butthere is no hiding from baseballthe fact that some are chosenand some are not...There is something of self-indulgence about many of these poems. But in the last years of Updike's life, with the body of fiction, essays, articles, poetry and even movie reviews he left behind, self-indulgence can be forgiven."Endpoint and Other Poems" is the work of old age, when confidence and reputation is not something to be achieved and accomplished but simply enjoyed. And I think John Updike enjoyed writing these poems.

Once I heard a neighbor refer to our author as "little Johnny Updike" and when Rabbit ran, he drove down Rt 222S not too far from my door. To me and a friend or two it trumped Kerouac. A little more subtle, you might say. One book a year followed, just about, mainly the novels, where the protagonist never failed to tell me exactly how the world was going to feel in ten years when I reached the author's age. I am really, really going to miss that.Several writers have commented on the greatness of these poems. That does them a disservice, I think. Updike doesn't show in the major anthologies and there's reason for that.These poems show a cannily perceptive person facing his old age and then, suddenly, his impending death. The first half dozen are recent occasional pieces on his last birthdays"the snowdrops lie/in drenched, bedraggled clumps/their tired news becoming weeds..."Then a half dozen or so on the final illness"My wife of thirty years is on the phone./I get a busy signal, and I know/she's in her grief and needs to organize/consulting friends. But me, I need her voice..."There follow twenty or so assembled to fill out this book on varied subjects and occasions. They're marvelous Updike. Updike on TV, Updike on Helen of Troy, Updike on Monica Lewinski, Updike on Updike's career. How can there be no more Updike?I searched out his Shillington home long ago. Only a few years ago I found the hardscrabble, woodsy farm in which he and the Mother lived. Tiny little farmhouse defaced with prefabs sprinkled about. Up the hill is the Lutheran church where the pastor shared his shocking thought that little Johnny would only be seeing Granny in heaven again in some very abstract and meaningless way. Updike said he felt like reporting this heresy to every adult he knew.The poems in every section feature Reading and environs, his family, his schoolmates, the Sweet Shop... small city life in Pennsylvania Dutch country."...I had to move/ to beautiful New England - its triple deckers, whited chuches, unplowed streets-/to learn how drear and deadly life can be."Did I say I'm going to miss this guy?

Updike was not a great poet, but he certainly wrote some of the most memorable poems of our time. His uncanny ability to put his finger on the buried pulse of American culture, so magnificently exemplified in many of his novels--why isn't In the Beauty of the Lilies not yet recognized as one of the great masterpieces of American literature??--is also on display in Endpoint but in a more muted way. I give it 5 stars for its clarity and its bravery. Not many could create a poetic hospice with such elegant authenticity.

If you like poetry, poetry that will move you and stay with you after the book is closed and put on a shelf, you will like this book. The most amazing aspect of this for me is that, even though Updike was at the very end of his life (he died in 1/09), he was creating wonderful new poetry with practically his last breath. It is inspiring on many, many levels. Read this book yourself, and find out how it strikes you.

His fiction praised,awards and honors won,John always seemed too Ivy League for me.Rabbit was much too horny for my taste.Although I read Hub Fans Bid Kid AdieuA dozen times,his skinny book of poemsWas just a whim, purchased to pass my time.I think he may have saved his best for lastAnd see his genius now for what it was.I too search for that boy lost in my mirrorAnd think of friends and family long since gone,My birthdays savored like these classic poems.John lingered with us long enough to leaveA final gift for those who stayed to watchThe credits roll before the curtain fell.

This completes my Updike collection. We forget what a wonderful poet he was as well as an essayist and novelist. These poems are so meaningful for it is his last collection.

Updike retained his silver tongue and brilliant insights right up to the end. Sad to lose this gifted writer. If you're a fan, this is the bookend of your collection. He stares his own mortality in the face in a touching yet sad way.

A short (96 pp.) compendium of simple and commonplace poems, some written during the authors terminal encounter with lung cancer, some marking his later birthdays, and some light comments on friends and events.The tone is generally light, and the imagery simple, much less complex than his denser prose. This is not a rage against the dying light but a calm and lucid account of events and places. I am sure anyone who has appreciated Updike's long and illustrious writing career will wish to have this volume as a farewell card.