All of Us: The Collected Poems…book review

All of Us: The Collected Poems…book review

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…

click here

 

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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“the trees lean in…”…“woodward,” my poem

“the trees lean in…”…“woodward,” my poem

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…

click here

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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Countdown 1945…book review

Countdown 1945…book review

imagine that you had been there…

 

 

Book review:

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

312 pages

 

There is quite tolerable intensity in Countdown 1945, in tandem with the horror of the use of the atomic bomb in Japan at the end of World War II.

There are gripping revelations from all of the principals involved in the development of the bomb and the decision to use it. There is dialogue more or less on every page. Countdown 1945 is not so much a book as it is the integration of tales told by the men and women who were there, doing it, and living through it.

This is one of the very few books I’ve read from cover to cover in the past several years.

It was a learning experience, and I was completely aware that I was vicariously sharing the terrible experiences of the folks who had anything to do with Little Boy and Fat Man.

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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.

 

“The beginning is always today.”

(quote, Mary Shelley)

so get started…

click here

 
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”

*   *   *   *   *   *

reach out, “touch the music,” my poem

reach out, “touch the music,” my poem

that toe is tapping…

 

 

touch the music

 

The horn is a sweet river

   of hot icing,

sprites chase the notes,

toe tapping just happens,

the sax galumphs

   and then it’s power and pout

      and plaintive moan

         and tickled scales,

a raft of rhythms that pushes through

   to almost endings,

the growly sax can make a joy

   to bounce inside our ears,

all dulcet, warm, and lazy…

 

January 26, 2024

 

easy listening in the Fireside lounge on a Friday afternoon

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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.

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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the third kind…  “Arrival,” movie review

the third kind…  “Arrival,” movie review

doing the right thing…

 

 

Movie review:

Arrival

 

2016, 116 min, rated PG-13 (brief strong language)

 

Arrival is a reflective experience of first contact with aliens who are not like us. These are aliens who, ultimately, want to do good, but the humans have to learn how to deal with this reality.

Amy Adams plays the linguist Louise Banks, and Jeremy Renner plays the physicist Ian Donnelly. They combine their robust talents to learn how to communicate with the aliens, and to try to convince their human superiors to do the right thing.

Banks and Donnelly fall in love. She saves the world. The aliens depart in peace. Her life is changed.

It’s a movie you can enjoy, no matter how many times you watch it.

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Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.

 

Book review: “The Gentle Boy”

The Puritans had a dark side…

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

click here

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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