Facing Nature

by John Updike

John Updike’s fifth collection of poetry faces nature on a number of levels. An opening section of sonnets touches upon death, aging, and, in a sequence of describing a week in Spain, insomnia and dread. The poems that follow consider nature in the form of seasons, of planting trees and being buried, of shadow and rain, of pain and accumulation, and of such human diversions as art and travel. The last poem here, and the longest in the book, undertakes a walking tour of each of Jupiter’s four major moons, a scientific excursion that leads into the extravagant precisions of the “Seven Odes to Seven Natural Processes,” a lyrical yet literal-minded celebration of some of the earthly forces that uphold and surround us. Finally, a dozen examples of light verse toy with such natural phenomena as presbyopia, the energy crunch, food, and sex. Like the best of the metaphysical poets, Mr. Updike embraces the world in all its forms and creates conceits out of the casual as well as the moments.

Genres: Poetry

110 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

John Hoyer Updike was an American writer. Updike's most famous work is his Rabbit series (Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit At Rest; and Rabbit Remembered). Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest both won Pulitzer Prizes for Updike. Describing his subject as "the American small town, Protestant middle class," Updike is well known for his careful craftsmanship and prolific writing, having published 22 novels and more than a dozen short story collections as well as poetry, literary criticism and children's books. Hundreds of his stories, reviews, and poems have appeared in The New Yorker since the 1950s. His works often explore sex, faith, and death, and their inter-relationships.

He died of lung cancer at age 76.

Reviews

[Julie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't my favorite collection of Updike's poetry, but it was still worth my time and better than most. Yes, the man was preoccupied with death and he thought he was at death's door by his early 40s (I've always wished I could travel back in time and inform him he'd actually make it to the national average for men and yes, the cigarettes would kill him).

It must have been a royal pain in the ass to be married to him (No, John, I don't think that mole looks cancerous), but if I were teaching a poetry class this semester, I'd just write this poem of his down on the board and tell all of my students, “Class dismissed.”

ANOTHER DOG'S DEATH

For days the good old bitch had been dying, her back
pinched down to the spine and arched to ease the pain,
her kidneys dry, her muzzle gray. At last
I took a shovel into the woods and dug her grave

in preparation for the certain. She came along,
which I had not expected. Still, the children gone,
such expeditions were rare, and the dog,
spayed early, knew no nonhuman word for love.

So she made her stiff legs trot and let her bent tail wag.
We found a spot we liked, where the pines met the field.
The sun warmed her fur as she dozed and I dug;
I carved her a safe place while she guarded me.

I measured her length with the shovel's handle;
she perked in amusement, and sniffed the heaped earth.
Back down at the house, she seemed friskier,
but gagged, eating. We called the vet a few days later.

They were old friends. She held up a paw, and he
injected a violet fluid. She swooned on the lawn,
and we watched her breathing slowly ebb to naught.
In the wheelbarrow up to the hole, her fur took the sun.

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Now when those girls, all thirty-six, go
to make their silky line, they do it slow,
so slow and with a smile—they know
we love it, we the audience. Our
breaths suck in with a gasp you hear
as their legs in casual unison
wave this way then, and that, and their top
hats tilt in one direction,
and their sharp feet twinkle like a starry row
as the pace picks up, and the lazy legs
(thirty-six, thirty-six, what a sex
to be limber and white and slender
and fat all at once, all at once!)
that seemed so calm go higher, higher
in the wonderful kicks, like the teeth
of a beast we have dreamed and are dreaming,
like the feathers all velvet together
of a violent contracting that pulls us in,
then lets us go, that pulls us in,
then lets us go; they smile because
they know we know they know we know.

[C.B. Wentworth · Rating 3 out of 5]

An intersting array of poems dealing with life cycles as they exist in multiple forms. Poems range from everyday life to the deep trenches of the human psyche to scientific dissection of life in its most basic form. In a thematic sense, Updike's poems are thought-provoking in that they provide a platform for questioning our existence and how we fit into the grand scheme of the world around us. Stylistically, poems run the gamut of sonnets and light verse with a sprinkle of what I can only describe as a mash-up of needlessly complicated words. From this reader's standpoint, Updike's best poems are those that offer clean and simple verse. Luckily, most of Facing Nature draws upon this strength.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems unfair that Updike should be such a fine poet as well as being one of the greatest prose stylists of the second half of the twentieth century, but there is no denying that fact. "Facing Nature" is an exhilarating volume that takes as its subject cells to planets and everything in between tackled in an almost-Augustan fashion.

[Divinity · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really love these, his writing is beautiful, especially the way he writes about nature and the connection between microcosm and macrocosm.

The way he writes about women is a little weird. He’s definitely a boob guy and I hate that I know that.

[Jillian Brady · Rating 4 out of 5]

At times surprising and beautiful.

[Rhodri Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed bag

[Bob Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Are you a sometimes lazy reader as I am? Do you find the words, phrases, paragraphs, pages, and chapters passing in front of your eyes with not a bit of understanding to hinder the flow? Not to deny the sensory pleasures of the reading act: the feel of the book, the turning of its pages, and the rhythmic scanning of its parts; but surely, the author proposes some meaning for our understanding.



Feeling guilty? I recommend poetry.



This volume of Updike’s poetry is from 1985. The topic, true to the title, is Nature – as object and process – life, death, illness, aging, loss, place, beauty, rot and refuse, the microscopic, the macroscopic. The poems are ordered by form – sonnets, poems, odes, and light verse.



“PAIN/flattens the world … and shows us what seriousness is.”

“Life is worse than folly. We live/within a cage wherefrom escape/annihilates the captive; this, too, /pain leads us to consider anew.”



TYPICAL OPTICAL – “But now that I’m older/And of the elite/I find I can’t focus/Inside of two feet.”



ACCUMULATION – “What mountains we are, /all impalpable, and/perishable as tissue/crumpled into a ball and tossed upon the flames!”



TWO SONNETS WHOSE TITLES CAME TO ME SIMULTANEOUSLY/No More Access to Her Underpants – “Her ass, its solemn cleft; her breasts, their tips/as tender in color as the milk-white bit/above the pubic curls; her eyes like pits/of warmth in the tousled light: all forfeit,/and locked in antarctic ice by this bitch.”



Sex and malice – vintage Updike.



Read a poem; read it today.

[Antonio · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has seriously been AMAZING! I hadn't known who John Updike was, but was intrigued by the covers picture and title, Facing Nature. Later i realized that the Walden which i had just read had an introduction by John Updike, which i found to be synchronic. Towards the second half of the book he starts to mention many physic terms and puts them into creative chilling poetry.

A favorite line of mine from this book
"Music rises in its fixed lattices
and its cries of aspiration chill our veins
with snowflakes of blood"-- Page 89

This is a book which i borrowed from the library and i am now buying so i can have my own personal copy. I recommend everyone to read this, and maybe after you'll be inspired to read all of Updikes' collection as i now am.

[Michael Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best known for his fiction, John Updike was also a fine poet, whose verses bring the reader into the same universe as his prose. Updike here addresses themes of the body's frailty, how ages informs our vision of the flawed world, and our responses to all sorts of decay. His is an earthy and often humorous spirituality. These poems are also well crafted and accessible. This volume was a joy to read.

[Dan Lalande · Rating 3 out of 5]

Updike's poetic persona writes about the wonder and the wilting of existence. The microscopic meditations on flora constitute the best poems. They're a perfect fit for his scientific eye, his prayer-like sensibility, and his trademark bitter sweetness.

[Bill]

You cannot help but be amazed at how much of the chemical and biological world animated his imagination.

[Patrick Lawrence O'Keeffe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not known for poetry, Updike is an excellent craftsman in this art.