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John Updike's view of Tulsa
Published: 1/28/2009 1:25 PM
Last Modified: 1/28/2009 1:25 PM

John Updike came to Tulsa -- I think for the first and last time -- in 1987, when he accepted the Peggy V. Helmerich Award from the Tulsa Library.

I had just started working for the Tulsa Tribune that year, had been with the paper just a few months, and so had little standing when it came time for the assignment of "who's going to interview Updike" to be given.

One of my colleagues had the idea of not interviewing Updike in advance, but finding a few moments during his time in Tulsa to squire him off to Arnie's Bar (which at that time was on Cherry Street), buy him a few beers, and chat about books and the like.

Needless to say, my colleague never got her wish. And the Tribune ended up running a wire story by Martin Amis about Updike, instead.

Still, I've always wondered how Updike might have responded if my colleague's plan had been presented to him, instead of the more traditional trek about the city's landmarks that he apparently was given.

It might have made the poem he later wrote about the experience a little less cutting.

"Tulsa," which was published in Updike's "Collected Poems," is not something the Chamber of Commerce might use in its publicity. But it does capture the dichotomy between the "public relations" facade and the somewhat grim reality of Tulsa's downtown -- and, with the possible exception of the train sounds, is not far from the truth of today.

TULSA
Not Oral Roberts’ city of heavenly glitz
(as are most dreams come true, in dreadful taste)
nor the Gilcrease Museum’s thirty thousand
arrowheads and countless canvases
of melting cowboys in pathetic-prairie pink,
but vacant lots impressed me most; downtown
a wilderness of parking space and brave
renewal schemes — the least false note, pawn shops.

Oil money like a flash flood came and went;
one skyscraper was snapped off like a stick
when the big ebb hit. Now the Arkansas
pokes muddily along, and a rusty train
fills all that hollow downtown with a blast
the Cherokee street people blink away.
-- John Updike



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ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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