by Richard Subber | Jan 26, 2025 | Books, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections, Tidbits
I’ve seen other creatures…
la cage
I could be wrong,
I think I’m a bird.
It’s hard to put it into words
‘cause I can’t talk
in exactly the way
the big creature does.
The creature can’t sing, of course,
I’ve sung the easy tunes
so many times,
but all I hear from the creature
is “la la la”
and “mmmh mmmh,”
without a speck of joy.
The creature gives me food,
although the seeds are really old
and the bugs are already dead!
and nectar?
oh well, I’ll keep waiting…
The hairy thing that barks
doesn’t jump up any more,
I stopped being scared.
It’s a good thing I’m up so high!
I did get to fly once
when the creature
forgot to shut the little door,
but I didn’t go far,
my little arms got tired,
then I moved around three times
and then the creature grabbed me—
it didn’t hurt—
and now I’m back inside.
I can see through the wall,
the sun is sometimes bright,
the sticks with greenish things
go up and down,
and back and forth,
I’ve seen other creatures
that sort of look like me,
I heard one sing my song.
A while ago, when it was dark
I think I had a thought…
I’m sitting here…
I can’t remember it.
December 7, 2024
“la cage” was inspired by “A Caged Bird” by Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909)
excerpt:
“High at the window in her cage
The old canary flits and sings,
Nor sees across the curtain pass
The shadow of a swallow’s wings.”
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Shantung Compound
They didn’t care so much
about each other…
by Langdon Gilkey
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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”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Jan 23, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Poetry, Reviews of other poets
there’s more than structure involved…
Book review:
American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century
Vols. 1 and 2
New York: The Library of America, 1993
Vol. 1 – 1,099 pages
Vol. 2 – 1,049 pages
What can I say?
In general, the poetry of bygone centuries is uninteresting to me.
The poets were convinced that structure was overwhelmingly important, or, perhaps, their readers were convinced that structure was overwhelmingly important, or, perhaps, both.
The word “relentless” comes to my mind. It’s difficult for me to read much of this work—silently or aloud—without bobbing my head, saying the emphasized syllables with increasing vigor and noise, and moving my body to match the all-too-obvious, often drum beat rhythms.
It seems to me that these poets think that the conjunction of selected words is of secondary or tertiary concern, whereas I believe it should be the overriding expression of the poetic arts.
The millions in the past disagreed. So be it.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Forget about Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Dracula is a scary book, really…
by Bram Stoker
–
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”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Jan 21, 2025 | Books, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections, Tidbits
one more round…
before it’s light…
It’s not quite day,
and I haven’t completely
shrugged sleep from my thoughts,
I’m thinking this is the short time,
this is “get started” time,
this is the gossamer moment
for pulling on the bright shirt
and welcoming one more day,
one more morning,
one more round of life,
one more chance
to get it mostly right,
I’m thinking nothing new here,
just like yesterday,
do good things,
get ready for tomorrow.
October 2, 2024
…waiting for breakfast at Easter’s Country Kitchen, Hingham, MA
Published in Creative Inspirations, Jan-Feb 2025 issue
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Hag-Seed
by Margaret Atwood…it ain’t Shakespeare
–
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”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Jan 18, 2025 | American history, Book reviews, Books, Democracy, History, Human Nature, Politics, Power and inequality
what’s right is right…
Book review:
No Constitutional Right to be Ladies:
Women and the Obligations of Citizenship
by Linda K. Kerber (b1940)
New York: Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1998
405 pages
Kerber, a well-respected historian, makes what should be an obvious point: women are citizens, just like men, and they should share all the rights and obligations of citizenship.
She disputes, in compelling detail, that women have a constitutional right “to be ladies” when that is conceived as separating them from a complete status as functioning citizens who are the constitutional equals of men (even the ones they’ve married!).
It’s not a “feminist” thing or a “suffrage” thing. It’s a matter-of-fact thing—nothing about it doesn’t make sense.
* * * * * *
Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Oops, Columbus didn’t “discover” America
…but he did get close…
–
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”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Jan 12, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Joys of reading, Poetry, Reviews of other poets
writing ingenuous truth…
Book review:
Natural Life with No Parole
by Sarah Rossiter
Georgetown, KY: Finishing Line Press, 2016
Rossiter’s poetry is worth a second read.
I think her word choices and line breaks are a bit disorganized, but nevertheless coherent.
Natural Life with No Parole is about what she sees and hears and feels, with genuine verve and ingenuous truth about the reality of human emotions.
She finds it natural to say things like “…That’s all there was, it wasn’t much, but joy is like that.”
Let the flavor of that line wrap around your tongue.
Quoted line is from “Woman in a White Truck, Driving”
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Snow Goose
…sensual drama, eminently poetic…
by Paul Gallico
–
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 | Jan 7, 2025 | American history, Book reviews, Books, Democracy, History, Politics, Revolutionary War
…John Adams,
in the thick of it…
Book review:
John Adams
by David McCullough (1933-2022)
Simon & Schuster, New York, 2001
751 pages
Maybe you’re like me. Maybe you don’t think biography is the best way to do history. David McCullough’s Pulitzer Prize-winner is a reason to change your mind a bit.
John Adams, simply, is a really good book. McCullough helps you to warm up to this American icon and to his personal experience in leading the American Revolution and the first formative years of the American republic.
Adams, our first vice president and second president, was among the few who were in the thick of it from the beginning, and he never shrank from doing what he expansively viewed as his duty to his new country.
McCullough’s prose is a delightful experience for the serious historian and for the armchair dabbler who likes a good read. From cover to cover, John Adams is a lush, genuine presentation of a man, his loved ones, his career, his commitment to do good works and his never-flagging appreciation that the object of government should be to do the people’s business and make possible
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
–
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”
* * * * * *
