by Richard Subber | Mar 23, 2025 | Books, My poetry, Poetry, Politics, Reflections, Tidbits
Too many gulfs…
Hand me that hammer
This lightening sky pulls my eye
upward from newly darkening earth.
Our troubled plain
has no points of light just now.
We face fears, terrors, hates, imprecations,
repudiations, exclusions…
Too many gulfs appearing,
too few bridges imagined
in the grim thoughts of too many.
I will build one bridge today,
I welcome this lightening sky
to ease my work.
November 9, 2016
I work on building a bridge every day.
I try to do a good thing every day.
That’s good for me and for America.
It helps to keep me sane.
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: All The President’s Men
The men and women
who crave power…
by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
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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 | Mar 20, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Poetry
warm blasts of beautiful…
Book review:
The Asking: New and Selected Poems
by Jane Hirshfield (b1953)
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2023
343 pages
There is lots to like and lots to pass over in Jane Hirshfield’s poetry.
Most often her style boils down to the “wild child” type, apparently she’s not too concerned with the idea of “the best words in the best order.” Many of her poems strike me as disorderly, albeit enthusiastic.
I think it’s worth reading through Hirshfield’s The Asking collection to get the taste and the occasional warm blast of beautiful insight and intuition. Here’s a taste:
“Stone did not become apple….Yet joy still stays joy.” (from “Counting, New Year’s Morning, What Powers Yet Remain to Me”)
“She closed her eyes,
opened her mouth
to receive the end of her life.
Its last tasting.” (from “A Day Just Ends”)
“The impossible closes around
like a smooth lake
on an early morning swim.” (“Everything That Is Not You”)
“How sad they are,
the promises we never return to.” (from “Autumn Quince”)
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Myths of Tet
How people get killed by lies…
by Edwin E. Moïse
–
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 | Mar 15, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature
it’s not “extra”…
Book review:
Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics
by Dan Harris and Jeff Warren, with Carlye Adler
New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2017
286 pages
I tried meditation once, about 20 years ago or so, and, I confess, I didn’t stick with it.
It seemed like an “extra” thing to do, and I think I felt like I was busy enough.
Harris makes a believable case for giving it a try.
He has good news, in part: you don’t have to sit cross-legged with your knees painfully lowered, you don’t have to pick any kind of “mantra,” and you can start off with 5 or 10 minutes a day—and he repeatedly says “one minute of meditation absolutely counts.”
I’m retired, and now I know I have the time to meditate if I feel like it.
I can count my breaths, so I can get started.
I’ve tried it a couple times already, and, I confess, I think there is a welcome stillness connected to the whole thing.
I think there may be a new way to be me.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 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”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Mar 9, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Theater and play reviews
Cue the “Brodie girls”…
Movie review:
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969, rated PG, 116 minutes) is all Maggie Smith, all the time.
There is a story line: deeply committed and outspoken teacher pushes young girls to maturity while she dabbles in love and grasps everywhere for approval.
Miss Jean Brodie (Smith) creates a mostly adoring set of “Brodie girls” as she flourishes and flaunts and flounders at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls in 1930s Edinburgh.
She leaves a trail of broken hearts and endures the ultimate humiliation of losing her job after she is “betrayed” by a student who almost grows up in the process.
Good acting, good story, good entertainment.
* * * * * *
Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 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”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Mar 6, 2025 | Books, My poetry, Poetry
a dog like him…
Oh, LeRoy!
It’s just not true that every ranch
has to have a dog like him,
but try to name a place that calls
itself a ranch, and claims with pride
to be a place where cowboys ride,
and doesn’t have a lanky pooch
who sleeps in all the darnedest spots,
and loves a scratch, and likes the kids,
and knows his name is LeRoy.
Every dude at Smith Fork Ranch
made friends with him without delay,
and learned his name, and scratched his head,
and waved him into line to join
the hike up to the bears’ own ridge,
and cheered him on when he detoured
to splash around in that high pond,
and made a point, back at the ranch,
to grab a treat from LeRoy’s jar
and make him “Sit!” (he almost did).
You’ll guess these stories never end,
but you don’t know that we were there
on our last day, when that old truck
made too much noise in passing by,
and LeRoy knew—to keep us safe—
he had to snarl and bark and run
to chase that truck—but oh!, too close…
He never knew how many tears,
so many tears we had for him.
October 15, 2016
Sadly, LeRoy died at Smith Fork Ranch, Crawford, CO, in September 2007.
My poem “Oh, LeRoy!” was published in my second collection of 47 poems, Seeing far: Selected 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: The Sea Runners
…it informs, but it does not soar…
by Ivan Doig
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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 | Mar 4, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Language
humanity surging…
Book review:
Winesburg, Ohio
by Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941)
Simon & Brown, 1919, 2012
208 pages
The reader of Winesburg, Ohio (1919) is tempted to think of Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology (1915), but the reader should resist the temptation.
There is very little of society in Spoon River, and so much of society in each of Anderson’s short stories. The humanity surges in these stories, and they touch so many memories of being with other people and making life happen.
At the end of each story—“Nobody knows,” “The untold lie,” and the list goes on—the reader wonders:
is there more?
is there more to know?
is there more truth?
It’s easy to put this book down, and it’s easier to pick it up again.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Proud Tower
…a lot more than a history book…
by Barbara Tuchman
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many waters: more poems with 53 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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