“…fragmentary blue…”

“…fragmentary blue…”

by | Feb 20, 2019 | Language, Poetry, Reviews of other poets

utterly imaginable…

 

Robert Frost (1874-1963) is an endlessly interesting poet. His poems are lucid, re-readable, utterly imaginable, recitable, and literate, always scaled to humanity.

A bonus  for readers is that Frost sprinkled heart-stopping phrases throughout his poems, for mere poets to remark. I’m always on the lookout for words, phrases, and images that turn my head around and make me say “I wish I had written that.”

Try this one:

 

“Why make so much of fragmentary blue/

In here and there a bird, or butterfly…”

 

As you can see, one thing a noteworthy poet like Frost does is this: talk in depth and with a few choice words about the everyday things that momentarily catch one’s eye, or make a toe tap…

Right now, “fragmentary blue” is my favorite color, I can see it, I think I’ll try to write it…

Here is Frost’s complete treatise on it:

 

Fragmentary Blue

 

Why make so much of fragmentary blue

In here and there a bird, or butterfly,

Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,

When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?

 

Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)—

Though some savants make earth include the sky;

And blue so far above us comes so high,

It only gives our wish for blue a whet.

 

Robert Frost’s “Fragmentary Blue” was published in 1923. It is in the public domain.

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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2019 All rights reserved.

 

Book review: Shawshank Redemption

A world I do not want to know…

by Stephen King

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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Book review: Sketches by Boz

Book review: Sketches by Boz

by | Aug 23, 2018 | Book reviews, Books, Language

The buzz about Boz!

 

Of course, they don’t write ‘em like this anymore.

Hooray for Charles Dickens (1812-1870). I’m talking about Sketches by Boz, his first book published in 1836.

I’m talking not only about the obvious point (Dickens has been dead these many years), but also about my understanding of the palpably inimitable Dickensian style.

Dickens does not fail to offer, time after time after time, character portraits that spring to life as you turn the pages—he sketches his characters with disinterested honesty, stout-hearted realism, generous indulgence, often a touch of whimsy…

 A case in point: “The Four Sisters,” who inhabit No. 25 Gordon Place in Sketches by Boz. In his brief (five pages) exposition of these cloistered ladies, Dickens ventures to create four personae that are not, will not, cannot be demeaned as a stereotype.

The Miss Willises—the master doesn’t trouble himself about not calling them the Misses Willis—are a scream, in a fastidiously literary kind of way.

Here’s a taste:

“The house was the perfection of neatness—so were the four Miss Willises. Everything was formal, stiff, and cold—so were the four Miss Willises. Not a single chair of the whole set was ever seen out of its place—not a single Miss Willis of the whole four was ever seen out of hers. There they always sat, in the same places, doing precisely the same things at the same hour…They seemed to have no separate existence, but to have made up their minds just to winter through life together…The eldest Miss Willis grew bilious—the four Miss Willises grew bilious immediately. The eldest Miss Willis grew ill-tempered and religious—the four Miss Willises were ill-tempered and religious directly. Whatever the eldest did, the others did, and whatever anybody else did, they all disapproved of…”

I think this passage, like so many scenes in Dickens, is a singularity.

Re-reading Dickens is a singular treat for me.

 

You’re right, this is not quite a book review. I have a love affair with words, the carefully chosen words, words that express in exceptional ways the boundless variety of our thoughts, experiences, and emotions. I think a lot about life, the human condition, loving relationships with others, and the many levels of beauty, serenity, and delight in our natural environment. Reading the pithy words of real wordsmiths is always a learning opportunity.

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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2018 All rights reserved.

Book review: The Blithedale Romance

by Nathaniel Hawthorne, not his best…

click here

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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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Book review: Sketches by Boz

Boz indeed!

by | Jun 25, 2018 | Books, Books Commentary, Language, Reflections

Dickens is all about

      generous indulgence…

 

 

Book review:

The Dickensian Boz…

Of course, they don’t write ‘em like this anymore.

I’m talking about Charles Dickens (1812-1870). I’m talking about Sketches by Boz, his first book published in 1836.

I’m talking not only about the obvious (Dickens has been dead these many years), but also about my understanding of the palpably inimitable Dickensian style.

Dickens does not fail to offer, time after time after time, character portraits that spring to life as you turn the pages, characters described with disinterested honesty, stout-hearted realism, generous indulgence, often a touch of whimsy….

Take just one hilarious case in point: “The Four Sisters,” who inhabit No. 25 Gordon Place in Sketches by Boz. In his brief (five pages) acknowledgement of these cloistered ladies, Dickens ventures to create four personae that are not, will not, cannot be demeaned as a stereotype.

The Miss Willises—Dickens doesn’t need to trouble himself about not calling them the misses Willis—are a scream, in a fastidiously literary kind of way.

VictorianWoman002

Here’s a taste:

“The house was the perfection of neatness—so were the four Miss Willises. Everything was formal, stiff, and cold—so were the four Miss Willises. Not a single chair of the whole set was ever seen out of its place—not a single Miss Willis of the whole four was ever seen out of hers. There they always sat, in the same places, doing precisely the same things at the same hour…They seemed to have no separate existence, but to have made up their minds just to winter through life together…The eldest Miss Willis grew bilious—the four Miss Willises grew bilious immediately. The eldest Miss Willis grew ill-tempered and religious—the four Miss Willises were ill-tempered and religious directly. Whatever the eldest did, the others did, and whatever anybody else did, they all disapproved of…”

I think this, like so many passages in Dickens, is a singularity.

Sketches by Boz, indeed.

Re-reading Dickens is a real treat for me.

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This is a book commentary, not quite a book review. I have a love affair with words. I mean carefully chosen words, words that express in exceptional ways the boundless variety of our thoughts, experiences, and emotions. I think a lot about life, the human condition, loving relationships with others, and the many levels of beauty, serenity and delight in our natural environment. It’s stimulating to read the pithy words of real wordsmiths. I offer my reflections on their wonderful work.

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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2018 All rights reserved.

 

Puppy space

…if dogs could write poems…

“One dog’s world” (my poem)

click here

–
​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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The moor, and more…

The moor, and more…

by | Jan 30, 2018 | Language, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections

…a new learning…

 

 

A soft foot

 

As with another eye

   I see the moor,

its quiet folds

   that need no glance from me,

its hues of earth and sky

   so naturally disposed.

 

I step with care,

I stand long moments there

   to feel the reverence of being

      and the pleasure of my spirit

      stepping free of me

and leaving unfamiliar stillness

   in my heart

   and in my mind,

a new learning.

 

I will walk this moor again,

   and fill myself again with calming joys.

 

November 9, 2016

“A soft foot” was published January 23, 2018, in my second collection of 47 poems, Seeing far: Selected poems, now for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle), or free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”

Inspired by “The Moor” by the Welsh poet R. S. Thomas (1913-2000). Thomas recounted his passage on the moor—“…I entered it on soft foot…”—when he felt a “…stillness of the heart’s passions…” I imagined a respectful conception of a quiet moor, and a quiet time of solitary exploration and a gift of harmonious perceptions. I was not disappointed. I walked the walk.

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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2018 All rights reserved.

 
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”

​

The “dime novels” in the Civil War

Think “blood-and-thunder”…

click here

 

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Poets talk about poetry

Poets talk about poetry

by | Oct 24, 2017 | Books, Human Nature, Language, Poetry, Reflections, Reviews of other poets

…no fractured, disjoint,

       inchoate grab-bags

               of words…

 

 

“A poem…begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong,

                                 a homesickness, a lovesickness…” 

 

Robert Lee Frost  (1874-1963)

in his 1916 letter to Louis Untermeyer (1885-1977)

 

Frost and Untermeyer exchanged letters (imagine!) for almost 50 years. I’m pretty sure every single one of them involved more than 140 characters and spaces…think about it, when you’re actually scribbling, you don’t have to “write” a space…

There are, I guess, about a million or so ways, more or less, to define “poetry.” In 1827 Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) offered his “homely definition” of poetry: “the right words in the right order.” Sometimes I think poetry is the manifestation of lust for the right words.

I have this lust in my heart.

I am a poet, a writer, a teacher, a moralist, a historian, and an unflinching student of human nature. Some things I’d rather not know, but I’m stuck with knowing them. I think a lot. I strive to express truth and give context—both rational and emotional—to reality.

I think words can be pictures, and lovely songs, and bodacious scents, and private flavors, and early morning caresses that wake each part of me, one at a time. I know some of those words, and, from time to time, I write some of them.

Here’s a final thought for consideration: Coleridge also advised (1832) that “…if every verse is not poetry, it [should be], at least, good sense.” That makes good sense to me. I have no tolerance for some poets’ work that is merely a fractured, disjoint, inchoate grab-bag of words. A largely random collection of words is not likely to be a poem. I like to read (and write) a beginning, and an end, and some really meaty sweetie stuff in the middle.

Coleridge’s 1827 definition of poetry is from Specimens of the Table Talk of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written by Henry Nelson Coleridge and published in 1835.

Louis Untermeyer was an American poet, anthologist, critic, and editor. He was appointed the 14th Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1961.

 

For example, read The Poetry of Robert Frost, available on Amazon

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A glimpse of the millennial dawn…

witness to the vital song of the sea…(a poem)

click here

My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2017 All rights reserved.

​
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”

​

 

Book review: Shantung Compound

They didn’t care much

      about each other…

by Langdon Gilkey

click here

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A silent sea?

A silent sea?

by | Sep 3, 2017 | Language, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections

…something more to say…

 

 

Listen

 

Surf sounds, chansons de mer,

the breaking rollers,

mellowed crunch of wave on wave,

the drumroll of eternal tides.                           

 

There is no silent sea, we think…

 

…consider a sheltered beach,

in the lee of a baffling sand bar,

sea-spawned shoal,

mediator for sea and shore,

muffler of the surf,

tamper of the bursting breakers,                           

damper of the singing of the sea,

guardian of truth about

   the vastly silent blue water.

 

September 16, 2015

Published:

February 2017 in my first book of poems, Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups, available on Amazon

December 18, 2016, in The Australia Times Poetry

March 2, 2016, in Whispers

January 21, 2017, in Creative Inspirations

 

I felt the sounds of the modest surf wash up to me. I was sitting almost alone on First Encounter Beach in Eastham, Cape Cod. I happened to imagine that only the tiniest element of the ocean makes all this noise, and that nearly all of the blue water on our planet rises and falls in magnificent silence nearly all the time. I’ve been at sea only once. I don’t recall noticing this aspect of the bounding main—the social sounds of the cruise ship made it impossible to hear silence. I wasn’t thinking about the cruise as I sat on the high sand on the Cape. I was thinking that the sea may have more to say. I was listening.

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My poems. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2017 All rights reserved.

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”

​

The Reader (Der Vorleser)

Not just a rehash of WWII…

by Bernhard Schlink

click here

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Rick Subber

Rick Subber

My first book of poems, Writing Rainbows, is available on Amazon.

I am a poet, a writer, an editor, a teacher, a moralist, a historian, a grandfather, and an unflinching student of human nature. I try to use the right words to create poems that have clarity and character. I do freelance editing and offer my services as a writing coach--I have repeat clients in the U.S., Australia and Italy. In my professional career I was a reporter/editor/research manager/strategic planning manager. I've been in love with my wife for 49 years.

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