by Richard Subber | Jul 20, 2025 | Language, Poetry, Reviews of other poets
the wisdom of Rainer Maria Rilke
“Pour yourself out like a fountain…”
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)
Bohemian-Austrian poet
Rilke wrote with nuance. Spend some time with his poetry. A second or third experience with his lines often exposes the reader to poignantly different understandings, new intuitions, lusciously incremental meanings…
Apparently he did not intend “Pour yourself out like a fountain” to be explicit advice for poets, but I think the phrase does good duty for that purpose. Especially I like the exhortation to “pour.” I’m happy when my poems are a gushing reflection of what I feel and see.
Rilke offered more. His full statement was:
“Pour yourself out like a fountain.
Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking
finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.”
That’s good for a second read. Think fountain-ish.
Source:
Rainer Maria Rilke, Part Two, XII, of The Sonnets to Orpheus, 1922
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Poems of Robert Frost
he hears bluebirds talking…
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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”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Jul 17, 2025 | American history, Book reviews, Books, Democracy, History, Language, Politics, Power and inequality, Reflections
“…to make lies sound truthful…”
Book review:
What Orwell Didn’t Know:
Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics
Andras Szanto, ed.
New York: Public Affairs, 2007.
236 pages.
This collection by Andras Szanto was published before the Obama presidency and what followed.
Essays by Martin Kaplan, Victor Navasky, and Geoffrey Cowan, in particular, illuminate these insightful, topical revelations about media failure to communicate truths.
George Orwell’s well-known essay, “Politics and the English Language,” is still useful and challenging, almost 75 years after he wrote it.
An excerpt from What Orwell Didn’t Know:
“…the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language…Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind…”
It is a terrifying reality that this statement sounds like it was written yesterday.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Bartender’s Tale
Ivan Doig’s story, I mostly loved it…
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Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups with 59 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 12, 2025 | Language, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
another next year…
Time traveler
Tomorrow didn’t used to be a goal.
Next week wasn’t the future
for a long time.
A year from now
didn’t always seem so far away.
For years I was
only barely interested
in my birthday,
now I see that it means
another next year
is nothing but past.
Future entices, future mystifies,
future engages
but it is not potent.
Today is the thing,
now rings the bell,
later is lonely,
it waits for a friend.
I don’t check my watch,
the chime is enough
to remind me
that minutes can be magic,
I welcome another minute,
I live my time.
April 5, 2025
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Snow Goose
…sensual drama, eminently poetic…
by Paul Gallico
–
Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups with 59 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 8, 2025 | My poetry, Poetry
close to myself…
Dreamery #3
I think I knew
what I was doing,
but I wasn’t sure why.
I was close to myself,
I did not heed the whirr
of my big blower,
knew it would be a long job,
sensed an annoying
lack of progress,
the work was my duty,
a slow drudgery,
I did not think of ending,
there was a clear space,
I was not curious,
I stepped in it,
I didn’t know
where the leaves would go,
the far wall of that big hall
was beyond the edge
of the half-dark,
there was no thought of outside,
so many leaves,
no noise…
I woke before the work was done.
March 30, 2025
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
–
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”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Jul 6, 2025 | Book reviews, Books
no fireworks here…
Book review:
The Awakening
and Selected Stories of Kate Chopin
by Kate Chopin (1850-1904)
Louisiana author
New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2004
296 pages
There are no fireworks and little spark in Kate Chopin’s prose.
Her characters and her plots seem quotidian at best, and more like hum-drum.
In her time she was a ground-breaking writer of feminist themes, but her stories simply are not thrilling in the 21st century.
As I tried to read The Awakening, I realized that I was trying to imagine how it would have felt doing the same thing 125 years ago. I failed.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: “The Gentle Boy”
The Puritans had a dark side…
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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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”
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