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Endpoint and Other Poems |  | Author: John Updike
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $14.00
as of 3/10/2010 20:26 PST details
You Save: $11.00 (44%)
Seller: OB1S
Rating:  9 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 112
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.7
ISBN: 0307272869
Dewey Decimal Number: 811.54
EAN: 9780307272867
Publication Date: March 31, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9780307272867 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
A stunning collection of poems that John Updike wrote during the last seven years of his life and put together only weeks before he died for this, his final book.
The opening sequence, “Endpoint,” is made up of a series of connected poems written on the occasions of his recent birthdays and culminates in his confrontation with his final illness. He looks back on the boy that he was, on the family, the small town, the people, and the circumstances that fed his love of writing, and he finds endless delight and solace in “turning the oddities of life into words.”
“Other Poems” range from the fanciful (what would it be like to be a stolen Rembrandt painting? he muses) to the celebratory, capturing the flux of life. A section of sonnets follows, some inspired by travels to distant lands, others celebrating the idiosyncrasies of nature in his own backyard.
For John Updike, the writing of poetry was always a special joy, and this final collection is an eloquent and moving testament to the life of this extraordinary writer.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
An Endpoint of a Writer's Life January 27, 2010
Glynn Young
John Updike's "Endpoint and Other Poems" was published posthumously last year, after a long and stellar writing career. Some of these poems were written in the last year of his life, some even in the last month.
The volume is divided into four sections: Endpoint, which are a series of birthday poems he wrote for himself between 2002 and 2008, along with poems written in the hospital as he was dying; Other Poems, an eclectic group whose subjects range from stolen paintings and singer Frankie Lane to doo wop and an elegy for golfer Payne Stewart; Sonnets, which cover music, places and people both real and imagined; and Light and Personal, which include poems on country music and his wife on her birthday.
A selection from the birthday poem for 2008, "Spirit of '76," written in Tucson, Arizona, gives a sense of the Endpoint poems:
Here in this place of arid clarity,
two thousand miles from my souvenirs
collect a cozy dust, the piled produce
of bald ambition pulling ignorama,
I see clear through to the ultimate page,
the silence I dared break for my small time.
No piece was easy, but each fell finished,
in its shroud of print, into a book-shaped hole.
And from "Baseball:"
...football can be learned,
and basketball finessed, but
there is no hiding from baseball
the fact that some are chosen
and some are not...
There is something of self-indulgence about many of these poems. But in the last years of Updike's life, with the body of fiction, essays, articles, poetry and even movie reviews he left behind, self-indulgence can be forgiven.
"Endpoint and Other Poems" is the work of old age, when confidence and reputation is not something to be achieved and accomplished but simply enjoyed. And I think John Updike enjoyed writing these poems.
Endpoint and Other Poems November 3, 2009
Lynn E. Lynch (New Hampsha)
So easy to relate to and thought provoking. His ease at expressing himself is so apparent. Love it! I will get it as a gift to my step daughter who recently lost her Mom.
John Updike September 6, 2009
J. K. Campbell (Lincoln,NE)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
His fiction praised,awards and honors won,
John always seemed too Ivy League for me.
Rabbit was much too horny for my taste.
Although I read Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu
A dozen times,his skinny book of poems
Was just a whim, purchased to pass my time.
I think he may have saved his best for last
And see his genius now for what it was.
I too search for that boy lost in my mirror
And think of friends and family long since gone,
My birthdays savored like these classic poems.
John lingered with us long enough to leave
A final gift for those who stayed to watch
The credits roll before the curtain fell.
John Updike's Endpoint and Other Poems September 4, 2009
Lacy Trekker
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you like poetry, poetry that will move you and stay with you after the book is closed and put on a shelf, you will like this book. The most amazing aspect of this for me is that, even though Updike was at the very end of his life (he died in 1/09), he was creating wonderful new poetry with practically his last breath. It is inspiring on many, many levels. Read this book yourself, and find out how it strikes you.
 Endpoint and Other Poems August 21, 2009
Nathan
I never much liked the works of John Updike. Since his death in January, 2009
I decided to purchase and read two of his books that were published posthumously by his estate. I volunteered to make a presentation at LIRIC (Learning In Retirement at Iona College--New Rochelle, NY) an adult on-going learning program. So I chose one of Updike's final essays written just before he died. Thus I began to read John Updike, starting from his "end of life" works. "Endpoint and Other Poems" pointed poignantly at Updike's realization that his own end was coming. "Tears of My Father" also expresses some very personal reflections Updike had as he entered the "Winter" of his life.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
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