Customer Reviews

Americana: and Other Poems

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John Updike is famous for his novels, of course, but I have been a fan of his poetry for 35 years, since Telephone Poles and The Carpentered Hen were issued in a single paperback volume called "Verse." While his best work was probably the adaptations of Yevtushenko that he did in Hugging the Shore, he has also had other triumphs. This book is his greatest of those. His early work was labeled as "light verse," but it was frequently much more. He wrote a great poem many years ago about a young man named Flick Webb, a high school basketball star turned gas station attendant. Flick was later to become his most famous fictional character, Rabbit Angstrom. The poem (I don't recall the title)contained such great lines as "...bright applauding tiers of Necco Wafers, Jibs, and Juju Beads." He has returned to that kind of vivid imagery in "Americana." For instance: "...brightly colored pools of candy bars; the men's room prim beside the equal-access women's; briefcases floating in a leather flock..." This volume contains A++ stuff of Philip Levine quality. Startling, remarkably perceptive and observant, beautiful but rarely obscure. You'll stop and read passages aloud dozens of times to whoomever you feel is worthy of hearing it. Highly recommended.

What can be said about such an outstanding author and poet as John Updike, except here is another fine example of a great writer. When does this man sleep?

Note for "Jannieruth" Flick Webb is the subject of "Ex-basketball Star"