[Note: This review is the second in a series. For the first, see here. For the third, see here.]

Rae Armantrout, Versed

For decades the con­fes­sional poem has been attacked by crit­ics who find it intol­er­a­bly naïve, suf­fo­cat­ing, and lim­it­ing, the seal stamped by the signet of bour­geois values. John Updike, in a moment of inten­tional self-​parody, cap­tured per­fectly the voice these crit­ics hear: “Of noth­ing but me, me / —all wrong, all wrong— / as I cringe in the face of glory / I sing, lack­ing another song.”

By now, of course, the inter­net has made con­fes­sion­al­ists of us all, and even the most strin­gent crit­ics of the mode have shown reserves of com­pla­cency that could shame whole sub­urbs. But there was a time when crit­i­cism of con­fes­sional poetry had real teeth. When Charles Bern­stein went after it in a 1980 essay, he argued that the moves had become too well known and the forms too much imi­tated, with the result that even the stark­est of per­sonal rev­e­la­tions ended up sound­ing phony:

“As a lit­er­ary jour­nal­ist, John Updike has that single ines­timable virtue: having read him once, you admit to your­self, almost with a sigh, that you will have to read every­thing he writes. At a time when the reviewer’s role has devolved to that of a canary in a pre-​war coalmine, Updike reminds you that the review can, in its junior way, be some­thing of a work of art, or at least a worthy vehi­cle for the play of ideas, feel­ing, and wit.”

—Martin Amis, from his review of Updike’s Picked-​Up Pieces.

UPDATE (1/28): Wyatt Mason has more.

Any day now we will trade it in; we are just wait­ing for the phone to ring. I know how it will be. My father traded in many cars. It hap­pens so cleanly, before you expect it. He would drive off in the old car up the dirt road exactly as usual and when he returned the car would be new, and the old was gone, gone, utterly dis­solved back into the min­eral world from which it was con­jured, dis­missed with­out a bless­ing, a kiss, a tes­ta­ment, or any cer­e­mony of farewell. We in Amer­ica need cer­e­monies is I sup­pose, sailor, the point of what I have written.

–From John Updike’s “Packed Dirt, Church­go­ing, A Dying Cat, A Traded Car”