'Distress and Loveliness'

 

“I began as a writer of light verse, and have tried to carry over into my serious or lyric verse something of the strictness and liveliness of the lesser form.” – John Updike

 

Born in Pennsylvania in 1932, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner John Updike was a novelist, short story writer, art critic, literary critic – and poet.  He authored 8 books of poetry, the last in 2009, the year of his death.      

 

Updike wrote poetry for most of his life. In his teens, he was already publishing poems in magazines, and his first book, The Carpentered Hen and Other Tame Creatures (1958), was a poetry collection.   With the month nigh upon us, here for Saturday’s Poem is Updike's,

              

                            November 

 

                                    The stripped and shapely
                                    Maple grieves
                                    The ghosts of her
                                    Departed leaves.

 

                                    The ground is hard,
                                    As hard as stone.
                                    The year is old,
                                    The birds are flown.

 

                                    And yet the world,
                                    In its distress,
                                    Displays a certain
                                    Loveliness.