A Sense of Wonder (book review)

A Sense of Wonder (book review)

Milking cows and dad music…

 

 

Book review:

A Sense of Wonder:

The World’s Best Writers

on the Sacred, the Profane, & the Ordinary

 

Edited by Brian James Patrick Doyle (1956-2017)

Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2016

192 pages

 

If Brian Doyle thinks you’re a good writer, ‘nuff said.

Most likely you’ll recognize at least a few names among Doyle’s collection of “the world’s best writers.”

In A Sense of Wonder, you can go straight to Mary Oliver (“Do You Think There Is Anything Not Attached by Its Unbreakable Cord to Everything Else”), or Pico Iyer (“A Chapel Is Where You Can Hear Something Beating Below Your Heart: I Came to the Chapel at the University as the Light Was Failing…”), or Paul Hawken (“Healing or Stealing? The Best Commencement Address Ever”), or, of course, Doyle himself (“The Late Mister Bin Laden: A Note”).

I especially like Connor Doe’s “Perfect Time: A Note on the Music of Being a Dad,” and if you’re not a dad, and you read it, you’ll start wishing right away that you could be one.

My choice for best “feel good” selection is
“An Elevator in Utah: On How Children Make Despair Look Stupid.”
Reading it creates the strangest urge to learn how to milk cows.

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

 

Book review: Shantung Compound

They didn’t care much

   about each other…

by Langdon Gilkey

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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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.

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”

 

Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.

*   *   *   *   *   *

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

“…turn the unspeakable into words…”

 

 

Book review:

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

 

by Anne Lamott

New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1994

239 pages

 

I prefer to think of Anne Lamott’s free-spirited commentary on writing as “some encouragement” and “some guidance.”

If you want to be a writer and don’t have a clue about how or why you want it, I guess that reading Bird by Bird may be entertaining but I think probably it won’t give you the mojo.

Lamott is talking to fellow writers when she’s probing the yin and the yang of the whole messy, oh so personal business of committing the right words to paper. Her tidbits about life will be mostly familiar to just about anybody, and sometimes they seem like they originated in post-it notes on her fabulous collection of index cards that she uses to jot down those special words and insights and dream talking.

Bird by Bird seems to be an appealing excuse to feel good about the tribulations and the ecstasies of writing, and all the stuff that happens in between. It’s a gossipy, comfortable walk through Lamott’s life of writing. She mentions this: “John Gardner wrote that the writer is creating a dream into which he or she invites the reader, and that the dream must be vivid and continuous.”

Her passion for writing is mostly obvious, and motivational if you’re inclined to be motivated.

I think this line is as good a summary as the reader can hope for: “…the writer’s job is to see what’s behind [the closed door], to see the bleak unspeakable stuff, and to turn the unspeakable into words—not just into any words but if we can, into rhythm and blues.”

Did you hear the drum riff?

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

 

“…and dipped in folly…”

only Poe knows how to say it…

click here

 

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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“…a siren’s song…”…a new book, my poem

“…a siren’s song…”…a new book, my poem

the soprano’s tear-stained kyrie

 

 

Symphony

 

A new book

   somehow sings a siren’s song,

a symphony of words

   that make a new tune,

such delight to open any page,

and hear the mezzo’s lilt,

the soprano’s tear-stained kyrie,

and nod as the basso

   closes a chapter

      with words worth repeating,

and let the chorus turn you

   to another page,

for more words

   that suddenly are not strangers,

such old words

   that make a new song.

 

May 30, 2023

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

 

“Boil up” and other good manners…

The “Hobo Ethical Code” is worth a quick read.

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”

 

Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.

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“…the great brutes…”  “Revelation,” my poem

“…the great brutes…”  “Revelation,” my poem

behind the frosted mist…

 

 

Revelation

 

 

Beyond my domain, I leaned ahead

   to cross the slope

      under a brazen sky.

In the chill of dawn, I stopped.

 

The apparition…

A bull appeared.

 

He turned his horns to me,

showed no fear,

no gaze of knowing,

no sentient nod,

he stepped away…

 

Another creature shambled near,

regarded me with innocence,

and scarcely paused,

his brawny flank rippling slowly

   as he passed on…

 

I stretched my eye

   to the scant egress

      of these beasts with iron mien.

Indeed, I had not crossed the path

   of a rambling herd.

 

I chanced to find

   the portal of an ancient furnace of the gods,

who took such wild ores as they desired,

and stoked their smokeless fires

   behind the frosted mist,

and conjured life,

and smelted the great brutes—

   cold-forged in the chill of dawn—

      who stepped heavily across my path

         and did not mistake me

            for their kind.

 

January 7, 2020

Inspired by this quotation:

“I had seen a herd of buffalo, 129 of them, come out of the morning mist under a copper sky, one by one, as if the dark and massive, iron-like animals with the mighty horizontally swung horns were not approaching but were being created before my eyes and sent out as they were finished.”

by Isak Dinesen

in Out of Africa (1938)

 

My poem “Revelation” was published in my sixth collection of 73 poems, Above all: Poems of dawn and more.

You can buy it on Amazon (paperback and Kindle),

or get it free in Kindle Unlimited, search for “Richard Carl Subber”

“Revelation” also was published in my fifth collection of 53 poems, My first name was rain: A dreamery of 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 2024 All rights reserved.

 

Book review: Seven Gothic Tales

by Isak Dinesen,

lush and memorable stories…

click here

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.

*   *   *   *   *   *

her cherub chatter…“and more…” my poem

her cherub chatter…“and more…” my poem

Dear, dear sprite…

 

 

and more…

 

Her lightest step is all she needs

   to round the garden in her tour,

she makes no stand,

and fills the air with cherub chatter,

she makes scant imprint in the earth…

 

The elfin miss delights in play,

so wild, winsome,

willing to sing

   what happiness she feels,

we little know its measure

   nor the nature of her laugh, her smile,

the chirp of her siren sound.

 

Dear, dear sprite, she hops and bounces,

we scarcely reck the eldritch stuff,

what seems of perverse end

   does not sustain a care

      beyond the moment’s wisp of dread

         that’s clapped away in her dance.

 

Her lightest step is all she needs

   to round the garden in her tour,

she makes no stand,

she flutters, frisks in merriment,

and makes her joy…

 

June 12, 2022

Inspired by the child, Pearl, in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

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

 

How does a poem end?

Finis,” my thoughts (my poem)

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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