Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

John Updike’s poem "Accumulation" explores themes of impermanence, human impact on the environment, and the passage of time through vivid imagery and introspective contemplation. As the narrator travels by bus out of New York through New Jersey, the journey becomes a metaphor for human existence and the accumulation of life's detritus.

The poem opens with a striking image of a massive trash heap, described as "a mountain of trash, a hill of inhuman dimension," where trucks labor up and down like ants. This trash mountain symbolizes the tangible accumulation of human waste, a grotesque monument to consumption and discard. The image of green plastic fluttering and flattened tin glimpsing through suggests a dynamic yet disturbing landscape created by human hands, constantly added to and shaped by our refuse.

Updike then shifts the focus from this man-made hill to a natural geological feature exposed by the highway—a cut revealing layers of shale. This transition from the trash hill to the shale serves to juxtapose human-made and natural accumulations. The shale, with its "sediment hardened, coarse page by page," symbolizes the slow, majestic accumulation of geological time, each layer a testament to millennia of natural processes. The description of the shale as "broken and swirled like running water" and "tipped and infolded by time" evokes a sense of the earth's dynamic history, in contrast to the static pile of trash.

This natural revelation leads to a philosophical reflection on the insignificance of human life compared to geological time. Updike notes that in the grand scheme, "our lives will have been of less moment than grains of sand tumbled back and forth by the solidifying tides." This image underscores the transient, ephemeral nature of individual existence against the backdrop of earth’s enduring processes.

The poem concludes with a return to the personal and immediate, as the narrator reflects on the past and the notion of home. The journey has metaphorically lifted the narrator and his generation from their origins, described as "that muck whose every particle...we hugged to our minds as matrix, a cozy ooze." The description of lives as "impalpable, and perishable as tissue crumpled into a ball and tossed upon the flames" emphasizes the fragility and fleeting nature of human existence.

Finally, the narrator observes the faces of fellow passengers, noting their "doughy, stoic look" reminiscent of people from his past. This connection between the personal past and the shared human condition adds a layer of nostalgia and kinship to the reflections spurred by the journey.

Overall, "Accumulation" is a powerful meditation on the physical and metaphorical detritus that humans accumulate through life. Updike uses the journey through a landscape altered by human action as a canvas to explore deeper existential themes, contrasting the fleeting nature of human life with the vast, indifferent processes of geological time.

Copyright (c) 2025 PoetryExplorer

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!

Other Poems of Interest...