by Richard Subber | Dec 19, 2023 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
I’m waiting…
Upon a time
For now time is my world.
My world of things exists in time,
my world of places gives the things a spot,
allotted time gives up
the passing lifetime things renew,
to keep a place
in pace with me.
I know not how to stop nor when nor where,
nor do I care to know.
I conjure places, hold a thing,
and snatch the time for it to be.
They all belong to me when I’m alone.
But soon each place
will bear your stance and mine,
we’ll share our hoarded time.
We’ve cached secure in clouds a thing called love
and, then, two smiles will burn the clouds away.
November 18, 1967
Bethlehem, PA
For my dearest one
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: Ethan Frome
not being satisfied with less…
by Edith Wharton
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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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Here’s what you’ll find on my website:
my poetry in free verse and 5-7-5 haiku format—nature poems, love poems, poems about grandchildren, and poems for reading aloud—written in a way that invites you to know, as precisely as possible, what’s going on in my mind and in my imagination;
thoughtful book reviews that offer an exceptional critique of the book instead of a simple book summary;
my reflections on the words, art, and wisdom of famous and not-so-famous people, and occasional comments on human nature, and
luscious examples of my love affair with words.
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by Richard Subber | Dec 16, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, Joys of reading, Language
…think “Larry McMurtry”
Book review:
The View from the Cheap Seats
by Neil Gaiman (b1960)
New York: William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2016
522 pages
I realize it’s a bit outré to mention that I recently “discovered” the very satisfying writing style of Neil Gaiman.
Gaiman writes with panache about Edgar Allen Poe, Rudyard Kipling’s horror (!) stories, Dracula, and more.
I’ve read The View from the Cheap Seats and loved it!
The “Four Bookshops” piece is rare earth for me. Reading Gaiman is giving me flavor and overtones of reading Larry McMurtry (viz., Literary Life: A Second Memoir).
Gaiman recounts this anecdote:
“Albert Einstein was asked once how we could make our children intelligent. His reply was both simple and wise. ‘If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” (15)
Gaiman also says “There’s a brotherhood of people who read and who care about books.” (29) He’s one of those folks, and so am I.
….viz., Fahrenheit 451
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
“…and dipped in folly…”
only Poe knows how to say it…
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 | Dec 14, 2023 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
not much to talk about
torpor
the fen is shrouded,
fogged, under a wan sky,
green huddled among the brown,
token of a pallid day,
subdued, stilled, mute…
October 11, 2022
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
The Liberty Bell, a book review
Historian Gary Nash tells it all
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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”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Dec 12, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, Joys of reading, Reflections
be a willing reader…
Book review:
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
by Muriel Barbery
Alison Anderson, trans.
New York: Europa Editions, 2006
325 pages
The Elegance of the Hedgehog is a logophile’s book.
Really.
If you can read this book without keeping your dictionary close at hand, I want to shake your hand.
Barbery has written a stunning first-person interaction of two characters who could easily be separate books. (Distinguishing fonts makes it easy to know who’s talking.)
The Hedgehog is Renée Michel, an almost unflappable and serenely superior person who pretends to be a simple old concierge in a building almost filled with rich folks who don’t care what she thinks about. She thinks about plenty that would never occur to them.
The second primary persona is Paloma, a barely-out-of-her-tweens girl who thinks she wants to commit suicide but lives an overwhelmingly fantastic life in her head and becomes Renée’s friend.
The Elegance of the Hedgehog is a literate, penetrating, philosophical, compassionate revelation of two great minds who connect and spiral into ever more fancies for the willing reader’s delight.
Be a willing reader.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Girl at the Lion d’Or
Sebastian Faulks is tenaciously literate,
richly Gallic…
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 | Dec 10, 2023 | Human Nature, Reflections, Tidbits
“…a single hour…”
“And which of you by being anxious
can add a single hour to his span of life?”
Luke 12:25 (English Standard Version)
Another way of saying this is:
Pick battles you can win.
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Myths of Tet
How people get killed by lies…
by Edwin E. Moïse
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Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 73 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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