by Richard Subber | Jun 13, 2024 | Book reviews, Books, Language, Poetry, Reviews of other poets
dry tears, is all…
Book review:
All of Us: The Collected Poems
by Raymond Carver (1938-1988)
American poet, short story writer
386 pages
Repeat after me: à chacun son goût.
This is my first experience with Carver’s poetry.
I’ll say this right out: I do not disdain Carver’s poems, neither do I feel any urge to read them again.
He didn’t bother with the lyric voice. Don’t look for any sparks. Occasionally, one will feel moved to dry tears.
Carver offers a monochrome oeuvre. It’s prose in disguise. In some dusty corners Carver is included in the loosely defined group of poets who write so-called “dirty realism.” Think Bukowski (but Carver isn’t as strident as Bukowski, not nearly as imperious as Bukowski).
Carver’s poetic efforts are better than dirt, but what he writes really isn’t poetry in any flavor that appeals to me.
…à chacun son goût
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: Shakespeare’s Wife
Germaine Greer went overboard a bit…
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 | Jun 11, 2024 | Language, My poetry, Poetry
yesterday’s trail…
woodward
The mystic mess
of leaves and twigs
and fractured stones,
no trace of steps,
the trees lean in
to shade
the vestige of a path,
there is the jumble
of shapes no one has touched,
the water of each season
knows its way,
the damp persists
in darkened earth,
scant colors fleck
the sombre tints,
a jewel of nature’s wont…
February 16, 2024
A view from the Woodland Crossing-Oakleaf link at Linden Ponds, Hingham, MA
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: Seven Gothic Tales
by Isak Dinesen,
lush and memorable stories…
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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 | Jun 9, 2024 | Book reviews, Books, Joys of reading, Language, Poetry, Reviews of other poets
Milking cows and dad music…
Book review:
A Sense of Wonder:
The World’s Best Writers
on the Sacred, the Profane, & the Ordinary
Edited by Brian James Patrick Doyle (1956-2017)
Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2016
192 pages
If Brian Doyle thinks you’re a good writer, ‘nuff said.
Most likely you’ll recognize at least a few names among Doyle’s collection of “the world’s best writers.”
In A Sense of Wonder, you can go straight to Mary Oliver (“Do You Think There Is Anything Not Attached by Its Unbreakable Cord to Everything Else”), or Pico Iyer (“A Chapel Is Where You Can Hear Something Beating Below Your Heart: I Came to the Chapel at the University as the Light Was Failing…”), or Paul Hawken (“Healing or Stealing? The Best Commencement Address Ever”), or, of course, Doyle himself (“The Late Mister Bin Laden: A Note”).
I especially like Connor Doe’s “Perfect Time: A Note on the Music of Being a Dad,” and if you’re not a dad, and you read it, you’ll start wishing right away that you could be one.
My choice for best “feel good” selection is
“An Elevator in Utah: On How Children Make Despair Look Stupid.”
Reading it creates the strangest urge to learn how to milk cows.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: Shantung Compound
They didn’t care much
about each other…
by Langdon Gilkey
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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by Richard Subber | Jun 6, 2024 | History, Human Nature, Politics, Power and inequality, Reflections, Tidbits
“I’m a robot, I’m here to help you…”
President Harry Truman viewed the destruction of Berlin and the homeless German civilians struggling to stay alive,
as he waited for word of the first successful test of the atomic bomb at Alamogordo, New Mexico.
Before he knew about the test result, Truman wrote in his diary:
“I hope for some sort of peace—but I fear that machines are ahead of morals by some centuries
and when morals catch up there’ll be no reason for any of it.”
July 16, 1945, at the Potsdam Conference in Germany
from Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days That Changed the World by Chris Wallace with Mitch Weiss
New York: Avid Reader Press, 2020
p. 123
Truman didn’t need to worry about so-called Artificial Intelligence…
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
The Reader (Der Vorleser)
Not just a rehash of WWII…
by Bernhard Schlink
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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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by Richard Subber | Jun 4, 2024 | My poetry, Poetry
The Book of Days
The dawn’s early light can be pleasure enough for the whole day.
There are words enough to tell the story of “the temptation of day to come.”
It is my delight to write some of them for your delectation.
moments
where treetops touch impending sky,
the tempting color of day,
a hem of dawn
on the quilt of night,
it holds my gaze for these moments…
December 21, 2023
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Old Friends (book review)
Tracy Kidder tells truth about old age…
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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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