This April, in honor of National Poetry Month, I accepted a poetry dare from TweetSpeakPoetry: to read a poem every day of the month and share it with my friends. I opted for the challenge of reading a single poet per week, alternating between historical and contemporary poets.
Here’s a day-by-day list of what I read during week 3. Learn more about my chosen poet, John Updike (1932-2009), here.
Day 14 – “Back from Vacation” by John Updike
“Gray days clicked shut around them; the yoke still fit,
warm as if never shucked. The world is so small,
the evidence says, though their hearts cry, ‘Not so!’
Day 15 – “In Extremis” by John Updike
“And yet they were my best friends once.”
Day 16 – “Hoeing” by John Updike
“there is no knowing
how many souls have been formed by this simple exercise.”
Day 17 – “Penumbrae” by John Updike
“The shadows have their seasons, too.”
Day 18 – “Planting Trees” by John Updike
“our small deed, that hurried day,
so amplified, like a story through layers of air
told over and over, spreading.”
Day 19 – “Evening Concert, Sainte-Chapelle” by John Updike
“…so that the listening eye
saw suddenly the thick black lines, in shapes
of shield and cross and strut and brace, that held
the holy glowing fantasy together.”
Day 20 – “Fine Point” by John Updike
“The tongue reposes in papyrus pleas,
saying, Surely – magnificent, that ‘surely’-“
Snark on the Side 