Poor Little RIch Girl

Man,I need to get on the ball and stop doing these a few minutes before midnight.


Updike is far more famous as a novelist, and with good reason. He does light verse and when he's not careful it veers into doggerel. 


But this one has just enough to keep it on the right side of that line. I would pay good money to read Kim Novak's (or for that matter, Lindsay Lohan's) little poems, though mostly for the amusement and not for the art.

Little Poems

John Updike

"Overcome, Kim flees in bitter frustration to her TV studio dressing room where she angrily flings a vase of flowers to the floor and sobs in abandon to a rose she destroys: "I'm tearing this flower apart like I"m destroying my life." As she often does, she later turned the episode into a little poem." - photograph caption in Life




I woke up tousled, one strap falling
Off the shoulder, casually.
In came ten Times-Life lensmen, calling,
"Novak, hold that déshabillé!"


I wen to breakfast, asked for cocoa,
Prunes and toast. "Too dark," they said.
"The film we use is Pallid-Foc-O.
Order peaches, tea and bread."


I wrote a memo, "To my agent-"
"Write instead," they said, "'Dear Mum.'"
In conference, when I made a cogent
Point, they cried, "No, no! Act dumb."


I told a rose, "I tear you as I
Tear my life," and heard them say,
"Afraid that 'as" of yours is quasi-
Classy. We like 'like.' O.K.?"


I dined with friends. The Time-Life crewmen
Interrupted: "Bare your knees,
Project your bosom, and, for human
Interest, look ill at ease."


I, weary, fled to bed. They hounded
Me with meters, tripods, eyes
Of Polaroid - I was surrounded!
The caption read, "ALONE, Kim cries."