Creative Process

There was the most amazing set of poems in the March 16 New Yorker by John Updike. Written in November and December 2008, a few months before he died, they reflect his last recorded thoughts about his illness. Or at least, the ones I know about.

What struck me is that these were either written in his hospital room, or at home between stints on the oncology floor. He was turning out still more work, converting his experiences into art, instead of bemoaning his fate. What did I do in the hospital a couple of weeks ago? Whatever it was, it certainly didn’t involve crafting amazing images to convey the meaning of those events.

Usually, I keep a notebook on my hospital bedside table to track the comings and goings of my doctors, vital signs, and random insights. (“Usually”? How sad to couple that word with “hospital”.) Anyway, composing poetry is not paramount at those times. Watching out for myself and not annoying the nurses are activities that generally top the list.

Here are the last ones in the set, apparently written on December 22, 2008:

Needle Biopsy
By John Updike

All praise be Valium in Jesus’ name:
a CAT-scan needle biopsy sent me
up a happy cul-de-sac, a detour not
detached from consciousness but sweetly part—
I heard machines and experts murmuring about me—
a dulcet tube in which I lay secure and warm
and thought creative thoughts, intensely so,
as in my fading prime. Plans flowered, dreams.

All would be well, I felt, all manner of thing.
The needle, carefully worked, was in me, beyond pain,
aimed at an adrenal gland. I had not hoped
to find, in this bright place, so solvent a peace.
Days later, the results came casually through:
the gland, biopsied, showed metastasis.


Fine Point
By John Updike

“Why go to Sunday school, though surlily,
and not believe a bit of what was taught?
The desert shepherds in their scratchy robes
Undoubtedly existed, and Israel’s defeats—
the Temple in its sacredness destroyed
by Babylon and Rome. Yet Jews kept faith
and passed the prayers, the crabbed rites,
from table to table as Christians mocked.

We mocked, but took. The timbrel creed of praise
gives spirit to the daily; blood tinges lips.
The tongue reposes in papyrus pleas,
saying, Surely—magnificent, that “surely”—
goodness and mercy shall follow me all
the days of my life, my life, forever.