John Updike has written a poem about the 1990 theft of paintings from Boston’s Gardner Museum. Updike felt a personal connection to the theft, he said: “It happened on my birthday night, so that I felt slightly at fault in this matter.” (He has not been charged.) “It’s remained in me. My wife and I do go to the museums now and then. I have always especially loved Vermeer. And so all this especially made it meaningful to me.”