by Richard Subber | Nov 15, 2025 | Theater and play reviews
it’s for grownups, too…
Movie review:
The Wizard of Oz
Maybe you haven’t watched The Wizard of Oz in a while. It’s not just for kids.
There are grown-up songs, introduced by “Over the Rainbow,” and probably you know most of the words to that song. Plus, you know what “follow the yellow brick road” means.
The Wizard of Oz (1939 version, rated G, 102 minutes) is basically a feel-good film, with a great big dose of technical wizardry and a widescreen feel that was created before anyone even dreamed about widescreen.
Judy Garland (1922-1969) was 16 years old when she starred as Dorothy trying to get back to Kansas with her adored Toto. She teams up with the iconic characters that you can name: Scarecrow, Tin Man, and the cowardly Lion. There’s a lot of prancing down the road.
Try watching Wizard one more time, with kids if they’re available. You won’t be surprised when you realize that a movie doesn’t need guns, high speed car chases, or any you-know-what scenes to be more or less completely entertaining.
Maybe, like me, you can remember that The Wizard of Oz was the first movie you watched the first time you had access to a color television set.
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Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Poems of Robert Frost
he hears bluebirds talking…
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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”
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by Richard Subber | Nov 13, 2025 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
my reflective poem,
written with an offshore breeze…
Remembrances
(Je me souviens)
Airs and airs, brisking through the afternoon,
fill my ears with ruffling sound,
and fully charge my mind with half-drawn shapes,
many half-thought fancies,
and many second memories
of once-remembered moments in the afternoon.
September 18, 2015
You’ve listened to this kind of breeze at the seashore. It’s not strange that it never stops. These airs are reminders of the ways we’ve turned our heads, so many times, to face a new direction or an old reality. I stood on First Encounter Beach, in Eastham on Cape Cod, at high tide in the late afternoon. I wasn’t alone but I kept my thoughts to myself at the time. I’m not sure I was fully conscious of everything I was thinking. I do know that I remembered a couple things for the second time, and that was good.
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My poem “Remembrances” was published in my first collection of 59 poems, Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups.
You can buy it on Amazon (paperback and Kindle),
or get it free in Kindle Unlimited, search for “Richard Carl Subber”
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: A Cold Welcome
The culprit was global cooling,
500 years ago…
by Sam White
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”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Nov 11, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Joys of reading, Language, Poetry, Reflections, Reviews of other poets
you don’t have to put it down…
Book review:
A Thousand Mornings
by Mary Oliver (1935-2019)
New York, The Penguin Press, 2012
82 pages
If you know nothing about Mary Oliver, this book is as good as any to make your acquaintance.
The poems in A Thousand Mornings are recognizable Mary Oliver stuff:
“…which thought made me feel
for a little while
quite beautiful myself.” (“Poem of the one world”)
“I hardly move though really I’m traveling
a terrific distance.
Stillness. One of the doors
into the temple.” (“Today”)
This is a slim volume, a light collection.
You can read it in one sitting if you want to.
You just might want to.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Financier
Theodore Dreiser’s villain…
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Seeing far: Selected poems with 47 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 | Nov 9, 2025 | My poetry, Poetry
look twice…
Look at that
Gosh,
crimson for my eyes,
candy for my lips,
orange peal for my ears,
the tree’s a treat,
leave it at that.
October 15, 2022
My poem “Look at that” was published in my seventh collection of 53 poems, many waters: more poems.
You can buy it on Amazon (paperback and Kindle),
or get it free in Kindle Unlimited, search for “Richard Carl Subber”
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Tales from Shakespeare
summaries by Charles and Mary Lamb…
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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”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Nov 6, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature
your own slow smile grows…
Book review:
The Price of Salt
by Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995)
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada: Must Have Books, 1952,2021
166 pages
“…(Carol’s) slow smile growing, before her arm lifted suddenly,
her hand waved a quick, eager greeting that Therese had never seen before.
Therese walked toward her.”
As you read the last words of The Price of Salt, your own slow smile grows. It’s a love story that ends happily.
The story of the love story is challenging—it embraces peaks of happiness and vales of sadness and anger. Like every love story, I guess.
Carol and Therese are different personalities, they imagine different lives—but they never stop seeing their future lives together after their completely serendipitous first meeting. They never stop struggling to get to the future. Therese says: “Everything’s not as simple as a lot of combinations.”
Highsmith tells a compelling story, but she makes the reader work for it. The prose is congested, there are quirky side trips in the action, the men in their lives are more caricature than personality, and both Carol and Therese repeatedly invite the reader’s patience as they try to think about what they’re thinking about.
It doesn’t stop the smiles from growing.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Comanche Empire
the other story of the American West…
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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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