by Richard Subber | Oct 31, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, Joys of reading, Language
sassy, salty, and singular
Book review:
The Kingdom of the Kid:
Growing Up In The Long-Lost Hamptons
by Geoff Gehman (b1958)
State University of New York Press, Albany, NY 2013
238 pages
I stepped outside my comfort zone to read Geoff Gehman’s memoir about some of his childhood years in the “long-lost Hamptons.” I’m glad I did.
If you have a particular point of view about memoirs, either for or against, try to forget it and pick up The Kingdom of the Kid, and just settle in for the ride.
This is more than a prosaic romp through childhood memories, it is a paean celebrating a child’s-eye-view of life.
Gehman is a writer who likes to “linger over words,” that’s my kind of writer. His prose, his stories, his memories…sassy, salty and singular.
Gehman is a poet, too. Repeatedly, he offers lush insight into his industrious youth, his friendships with the young and the old, his affinity for the place, the “long-lost Hamptons” where Geoff and his pals spent the good old days.
He describes the scene as he observed mourners in the Wainscott Cemetery:
“…I sat on my bike in the school parking lot, shaded by grand sycamores, and watched visitors treat the cemetery with reverence. They placed flowers by graves, prayed on their knees, cried on their backs. They stared at the sky, held séances in broad daylight, eavesdropped on eternity.
“Those pilgrims taught me the morality of mortality. Without asking anyone I learned to walk around the stones, to respect the dead as if they were alive.”
In every chapter he offers another little piece of his heart.
The Kingdom of the Kid is good reading. Real good.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Bridges of Madison County
If you’re looking for
highly stoked eroticism
and high-rolling lives
that throw off sparks when they touch,
look elsewhere.
by Robert Waller
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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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by Richard Subber | Oct 21, 2023 | Language, My poetry, Poetry
loving a creature…
Learning
She was happily proud
to show me the new chicks,
her loving hands firmly full
of the downy creatures,
she taught me how
to gently stroke them,
my hand, suddenly,
it seemed too hard
for touching,
I stretched one finger
to the tiny heads,
I wondered how those peeps felt
in that tiny moment
of such awful risk
that they couldn’t imagine,
I wanted to whisper,
in gentling words,
that there is no danger
in her warm hands
or my careful caress.
May 18, 2023
“Learning: was inspired by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s “Springing” on May 17, 2023, on her website, click here
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
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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 always welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Oct 10, 2023 | Language, My poetry, Poetry
joy uplifts each dance
empathic
I think of you in a new way…
you are one of the greeters,
you help the new ones to find old friends,
you freely give so many smiles,
sing the tunes that fill the air,
you sway with rhythms
that join so many spirits
and spin so many steps,
you show good heart
when easy joy uplifts each dance,
stepping up to the awkward ones
to tell the secret words of love
that all can share,
you lead the way
to radiant halls
and precious gardens
where all can stand together
and make so much music
that never stops…
June 20, 2023
For my dearest one
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: Cold Mountain
by Charles Frazier, he reaches deep…
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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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by Richard Subber | Oct 5, 2023 | Language, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
this end, the one…
Amaze
Countless possible beginnings,
uncounted possible turns of each one,
the one end seems finally certain…
This creature on the sand,
forlorn, lifeless,
this end the one, it seems…
Still.
It will change.
Decay?
A careless word,
a haughty view,
a narrow disdain,
ignoble, incurious.
If life is the course of change
in consequence of itself,
with no limit,
then this creature,
mutely changing now,
may yet have futures…
We do no harm to give it leave to linger,
and respect its changing prospect
for moments more,
and leave it
to walk around the new curve of the dune…
Chatham, Cape Cod, MA
June 15, 2000
My poem “Amaze” 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”).
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: Tales from Shakespeare
summaries by Charles and Mary Lamb…
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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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by Richard Subber | Sep 7, 2023 | Joys of reading, Language, My poetry, Poetry
…let the chorus turn you…
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.
Rumford, RI
May 30, 2023
Let yourself watch your 12-year-old granddaughter with a new book…does this poem occur to you?
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
The Scarlet Letter, victim of Hollywood
the Nathaniel Hawthorne version is best
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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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by Richard Subber | Aug 10, 2023 | Language, My poetry, Poetry
a rose, more than a rose…
tableau en cramoisi
So ripe, these blooms!
So full, so much of rose,
a bounty of petals,
a glory of crimson,
thickets of beauty
on burdened stems.
September 25, 2019
“Red roses” wasn’t good enough to say the right words about this gift of flowers…
qu’on peut dire un peu de cramoisi aussi…
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: War and Peace, Second Epilogue
…something different: Tolstoy’s epilogue on history…
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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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