POETRY IN LOCKDOWN:6

John Updike will always be better known as a novelist & short story writer, but he took himself quite seriously as a poet. His first published piece of writing, in The New Yorker c. 1951, was a poem. He went on to publish several collections of poetry, much of it being light, humorous or “occasional” verse, though mixed in with it were some more weighty & highly wrought stuff. The most intricate of these is ‘Midpoint’ (1968), a five-part meditation on his life-so-far — Updike’s ‘Prelude’, if you like.

Even Updike's lighter verse usually carries a serious punchline, as in this poem, in which Updike is glad that he survived an illness. I post it on the day Boris Johnson was moved out of intensive care while suffering from the effect of Covid-19.

Fever by John Updike

I have brought back a good message from 102°:
God exists.
I had seriously doubted it before;
but the bedposts spoke of it with utmost confidence,
the threads in my blanket took it for granted,
the tree outside the window dismissed all complaints,
and I have not slept so justly for years.
It is hard, now, to convey
how emblematically appearances sat
upon the membranes of my consciousness;
but it is a truth long known
that some secrets are hidden from health.