by Richard Subber | Jul 30, 2024 | Memoir, My poetry, Poetry
choosing up sides…
you’re “it”!
Our playground at the school
was bare dirt studded with big trees,
no one thought we needed more.
We had balls of different sizes,
we ran miles between the trees,
and we did secret things
in the back corner
where the teachers wouldn’t go.
Recess wasn’t my favorite time,
I wasn’t a star in anything,
but I grouched like my friends
when the bell rang us in.
We always started a new game every day,
recess was a “now” time,
I don’t recall having “later” thoughts.
I think I never wondered
how an old man might remember
any of those days…
now I can relive some of those moments,
and I wonder about the things I forget.
April 28, 2024
remembering recess in the 1950s
behind the Blackwood Terrace Elementary School
in Deptford Township, NJ
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Myths of Tet
How people get killed by lies…
by Edwin E. Moïse
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My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 53 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Jul 27, 2024 | American history, Book reviews, Books, Democracy, History, Politics, Power and inequality, Reflections
think again about democracy
Book review:
Our Ancient Faith:
Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment
Allen C. Guelzo
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2024
247 pages
Despite the title, Guelzo’s estimable book is not primarily or thematically about Abraham Lincoln. It is a densely researched and completely explained treatise on democracy, what it means, and what it might mean.
Our Ancient Faith opens new vistas of thought for me, and I’m thankful for my newly conceptual ideas about democracy, including the good, the bad, and the ugly. Make no mistake, democracy isn’t inherently our salvation. We’ve got a lot to do as we go down that path.
Granted, the reader will learn about Lincoln, although a good grounding in Lincoln’s life story and his times will serve the reader well.
I’m a bit leery of believing that I know for certain what a dead man was thinking when he said this and that. Guelzo perhaps reads too deeply into Lincoln’s recorded words. The book certainly is not hagiographic, and Lincoln certainly was a deep thinker, but I don’t want to forget that Lincoln was an ambitious man and a politician.
I’ll be inclined to read the book again for the expansive exposition of political thought.
The book, with extensive notes, is 247 pages, a very sensible length.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Snow Goose
…sensual drama, eminently poetic…
by Paul Gallico
As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Jul 25, 2024 | Human Nature, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
try whispering to your dog
Say what?
We’re not as special as we think we are…
We don’t really rule the earth,
we can’t fly,
or snooze at the bottom
of the deep end of the pool,
and we can’t even roll over when we’re born,
we tend to be messy
when we’re not paying attention,
most of us think wearing shoes is normal,
we think dirt is dirty,
we don’t like to admit
that we eat dead things,
and we think a horse whisperer
is some weird guy,
we think reading and writing
is our thing,
and we think “Sparky, here boy!”
is the right way to call the pup,
and we ignore this mystery:
What if your dog can talk,
but he won’t?
April 19, 2024
I guess you’ve thought about it…
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Bartender’s Tale
Ivan Doig’s story, I mostly loved it…
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In other words: Poems for your eyes and ears with 64 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Jul 23, 2024 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature
talk a lot, pick a little…
Book review:
What the Robin Knows:
How Birds Reveal the Secrets of the Natural World
Jon Young
Boston: Mariner Books-Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012
241 pages
“Just as scientists have identified elements of human speech that reflect a speaker’s emotions, field experiments have shown that the calls of many animals provide listeners with information about objects and events in the environment. Like human speech, therefore, animal vocalizations simultaneously provide others with information that is both semantic and emotional.”
p. 105 from What the Robin Knows
The birds talk to each other. All species of birds and many species of other animals also listen to birds. Both prey and predator species listen to the birds. We can listen to birds.
I suspect that Young’s widely experienced detail must be a bit deceptive. I suspect there is more randomness than Young explains. If there weren’t some randomness, the predators would have figured out the patterns long ago.
…and some other thoughts: suppose the birds are really talking…what if your dog can talk and chooses not to?
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
“Fishering,” by Brian Doyle
…what meets the eye…
My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 53 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Jul 21, 2024 | Human Nature, Reflections, Tidbits
the words will come…
“It is a fact of human life
that one must eventually choose a philosophy.”
from A Gentleman in Moscow
by Amor Towles (b. 1964)
New York: Penguin Books, 2016
462 pages
p. 146
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Scarlet Letter
the beating hearts…by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 53 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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