by Richard Subber | Dec 21, 2024 | Book reviews, Books
strange wake-up…
Book review:
The Last White Man
by Mohsin Hamid
New York: Riverhead Books, 2022
180 pages
Hamid’s central idea is interesting: white people wake up and discover that they are brown people. Think about it. How many differences are more than skin deep?
As I started to read The Last White Man, I started to think of Coleridge talking about “the best words” and “the best words in the best order.” I started to think about other books I’ve read about beautiful words. I realized that this book isn’t full of them.
Hamid repeatedly offers massively run-on sentences to his readers. That’s not for me. It’s just too hard to want to turn the page and read more of this book.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 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 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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by Richard Subber | Dec 19, 2024 | Other, Poetry, Reviews of other poets
get hungry…
From John O’Donohue (1956-2008), his poem “For the Artist at the Start of Day.”
O’Donohue invokes a morning that may
“…dwell uniquely
Between the heart and the light
To surprise the hungry eye…”
I try to let my eye be hungry
in the morning when I take my first walk…
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Movie review: Same Time, Next Year
all-American adultery, oh yeah…
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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”
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by Richard Subber | Dec 17, 2024 | Language, My poetry, Poetry
Let’s read a book…
Entreaties
O, come, lovely child,
tell me your words, what you see,
what you hear, and feel.
O, stay, rampant child,
be still, give me your sweet smile.
I give mine to you.
July 3, 2013
What wouldn’t you give for a few more minutes
of marvelous exploration with that magnificent child?
Can you imagine that you would ever say “No” when she says “Read it again!”?
When she decides to tell you again about the spider that she saw yesterday,
do you think for even a moment that it will be boring?
Published in Creative Inspirations, May/Jun 2018 issue
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
A poem about the right thing
…and the lesser incarnation…
“Vanity”
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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 15, 2024 | Book reviews, Books, History, Power and inequality
“. . . lions led by donkeys . . .”
Book review:
The Donkeys
by Alan Clark
London: Pimlico, 1961, 1994
216 pages
Clark tells the terrible story of high-level British incompetence in leading massed armies in combat with everybody using terrifying weapons.
At the outbreak of World War I, Britain had a relatively small professional army (247,000 men). Nearly half of them were stationed overseas throughout the British Empire.
Thus, on the home island in August 1914, Britain’s generals mustered about 150,000 men to be the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) that crossed the English Channel, to join the French in fighting the German attackers.
Within three months, that half of Britain’s professional army was gone. Most of the men in the BEF were dead. Their generals must take much of the blame.
As the horrific trench warfare became the hallmark of World War I, a German general, Erich Ludendorff (1865-1937), had a disdainful conversation with a fellow officer, Carl Hoffmann (1869-1927):
Ludendorff: “The English soldiers fight like lions.”
Hoffman: “True. But don’t we know that they are lions led by donkeys.”
p.s. Britain’s total WWI casualties: 673,375 dead and missing, 1,643,469 wounded
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: Shawshank Redemption
A world I do not want to know…
by Stephen King
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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 | Dec 12, 2024 | My poetry, Poetry
hair and gone…
Snood
A bag for hair,
the net surrounds,
it holds the hair entire,
less gracious than the dangling strands,
but a total wrap,
elegance enfolds and sways perchance,
the wild mane contained
but waiting to be free.
August 31, 2024
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: Tales from Shakespeare
summaries by Charles and Mary Lamb…
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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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