by Richard Subber | Apr 30, 2026 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
huggery works…
I knew what I had to do,
I tried rockin’ and rollin’ with the punch…
Wave off
One of today’s chances,
the not so good kind…
it came my way.
I said “I know you,
you want to take my time,
and that’s all that I will give—
I will not offer up
my peace of mind,
or my resolve to do good things,
or my sense that I may
hug the afternoon
and be happy
to embrace the balance of the day.”
September 14, 2018
My poem “Wave off” was published in my third collection of 64 poems, In other words: Poems for your eyes and ears. You can buy it on Amazon (paperback and Kindle), or get it free in Kindle Unlimited, search for “Richard Carl Subber”
* * * * * *
My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Sea Runners
…it informs, it does not soar…
by Ivan Doig
–
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.
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Apr 28, 2026 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History
…where the buffalo stopped roaming…
Book review:
Crazy Horse
by Larry McMurtry (1936-2021)
Bibliophile, novelist, Pulitzer Prize winner
New York: Penguin Group, 1999 (Penguin Lives series)
148 pages
Apparently it was Larry McMurtry’s goal in life to avoid writing everything I don’t like.
Crazy Horse is a gem: crisp, appealing, well-informed, in McMurtry’s signature style—crafted words, no nonsense, literate. This is a candid assessment of the life and times of Ta-Shunka-Witco (“His horse is crazy”) (c1840-1877).
If there had been no relentless assault against the American Indians by white America and its government, Crazy Horse might have been an anonymous, eccentric figure among the Oglala Sioux. His compatriots probably understood him about as well as we do—that is, not much.
From several points of view, in the middle of the 19th century and now, Crazy Horse was a loner and a lone eagle. McMurtry did a commendable job of trying to see the world as Crazy Horse saw it. The world as Crazy Horse wanted it to be was shriveling around him during his entire life.
It’s too bad that Crazy Horse wasn’t born in an earlier, less contentious, more agreeable time. It’s too bad that he couldn’t simply have made his home where the buffalo roamed.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Bartender’s Tale
Ivan Doig’s story, I mostly loved it…
–
My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 52 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 | Apr 26, 2026 | My poetry, Poetry
it feels good to say it
We say morning
I say morning,
it feels good
to say it
one more time,
I am so willing
to guess that you
are saying morning,
you walk in your garden
with the far wall of flowers…
I look for you
in my heart,
I remember all the times
we mentioned morning
when we danced
to start the day.
February 8, 2026
* * * * * *
My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: Waterloo
The slightly Hollywood bravery
of Richard Sharpe,
the butcher’s work done at the battle…
by Bernard Cornwell
–
My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 52 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.
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Apr 23, 2026 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History
Three dynamic decades in America…
Book review:
Society and Culture in America: 1830-1860
Russell Blaine Nye (1913-1993)
The New American Nation Series, Henry Steele Commager and Richard B. Morris, eds.
New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1974
432 pages
Nye tells a great big story, in sufficient detail for the serious student, and with enough style to satisfy any more casual, interested reader. If you don’t find a lot in this volume that matches and illuminates your interests, then you need to get out more.
In Society and Culture in America: 1830-1860, the decades before the American Civil War are remarkably filled with Americans and American society spreading and maturing in all directions.
Wagon trains were crossing the largely unmapped west (the transcontinental railroad wasn’t completed until May 1869).
European performing artists were getting top billing all over the United States—that is, all 33 of the states—while American musical arts were building up steam.
Education became effectively accessible for quite a few of the 20 million Americans who were eager to learn. “Sunday schools” (based on a British philanthropist’s program to set up schools for poor kids in Britain on Sundays, when the kids weren’t working) started catching on after the turn of the 19th century, and then they blossomed when churches got into the business to teach reading and writing, and, of course, elements of their respective faiths. All kinds of volunteer societies established “institutes” to spread learning. The “lyceum”—a locally sponsored program of uplifting lectures—was popular everywhere. By 1860, every state in the union offered at least elementary and secondary education, funded by tax dollars.
I could go on and on. Nye did so for 432 pages. The life of the nation in three dynamic decades, 1830-1860, is a great big story.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
Book review: Saint Joan
by George Bernard Shaw
–
Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 74 free verse 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 | Apr 21, 2026 | Books, Joys of reading, My poetry, Poetry
be ready…
Book-ish
Pick up that book again.
Yes, too many words,
too many pages.
In there, somewhere,
a lustrous phrase
you didn’t see,
a deepest thought
you didn’t think,
a relic of song
you didn’t sing,
a wayward dream
you didn’t know,
a sequence of best words,
they were a blur.
Take the book again,
open it where you will,
be ready for something more.
June 20, 2025
* * * * * *
My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2026 All rights reserved.
–
Empyrean: new poems with 57 free verse 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.
* * * * * *
