The Black Canyon of the Gunnison

The Black Canyon of the Gunnison

by | Jan 22, 2018 | My poetry, Poetry

the wind song of the canyon…

 

 

The Gunnison River is still doing its work,

   the river never looks up…

     it inspired my new nature poem

 

 

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

 

We tramp ascending trails,

scant footsteps from the canyon rim,

we look ahead and up,

no need for looking down.

 

The canyon stares at us

   with no flutter of interest,

no ripple of welcome.

The canyon needs no rim walkers

   to mark the edge of sky,

it needs no halfling voice

   to make a vagrant echo

      chasing the puny river

         that carves a new bottom each day.

 

We keep to the high line

   of the trampled scuffs of booted feet,

the wizened pine scrub reaches out to us,

not close enough to touch,

but near enough to drop

   the untouched cones that mark the season.

 

We face the nearing sky,

we step round to a new patch of wood,

a turn that mutes the wind song of the canyon,

and we nearly forget

   that we are high above that wild width,

scant steps from that vast space.

 

January 9, 2018

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

 

Book review: The Myths of Tet

How people get killed by lies…

by Edwin E. Moïse

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”

*   *   *   *   *   *

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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.

*   *   *   *  *

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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Puppy space

Puppy space

by | Jul 7, 2017 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections, Reviews of other poets

Some puppy space isn’t the best place…

 

A while ago I read a poem that put a golf ball in my throat.

If ever in your life you have felt love, then you have your armor that may keep you safe when you read it.

Wesley McNair writes about a puppy on a chain who cries when he strains into the collar at the periphery of his circular, desolate space:

 

“…Soon,

 when there is no grass left in it

 and he understands it is all he has,

 he will snarl and bark whenever

 he senses a threat to it.

 Who would believe this small

 sorrow could lead to such fury

 no one would ever come near him?”

 

Do you have such a puppy space in your life? Can you stop barking?

Can you bring a friend inside the circle? Can you slip the collar?

 

Poem copyright ©2010 by Wesley McNair, “The Puppy,” from Lovers of the Lost: New & Selected Poems, (David R. Godine, 2010). Posted by permission on www.PoetryFoundation.org

…and another thing:

I can tell you that the “puppy space” theme recurs in poetry, as in:

 

“…a junkyard puppy learns quickly how to dream…”

From “Luke’s Junkyard Song” by Mary Oliver

 

Mary Oliver’s intuitive lines moved me to offer my own empathic intuition about the careless degradation of a dog’s world view from inside a forgotten fence:

 

One dog’s world

 

The fence is cruel, you understand,

it stops him short

   but does not bar his gaze,

it is the edge of his patrol,

each day he takes those last steps forward

   at a random spot,

and then, again, beyond that rusting truck,

and then, again, those last stiff steps

   to another well-worn station at the fence

      that makes his junkyard a prison.

 

The fence is cruel, you understand,

its wire links hide nothing

   of the lively concourse and the duck-filled river,

the shipping docks and the tandem rail lines

   outside his world.

 

The fence tempts his eye each day

   to see a new future a few steps away,

to see another world he cannot understand.

This fence is his faux frontier,

more harsh because so near,

a lure with no reward,

a circle with no end, no beginning,

no escape…

 

He learned too soon to dream of getting through…

 

November 10, 2016

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

A poet is a “maker”

…and it doesn’t have to rhyme…

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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Chanson de mer

Chanson de mer

by | May 14, 2017 | Language, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections

The exuberant power

         of the natural world…

 

 

Chanson de mer

 

I am the rock.

I am the island.

I am the glistening boulder at the waterline.

I am the sharp-edged, flinty fragment,

   tossed by the blue-green surge,

      scattered by the stinging wind,

         collected once, and dropped, by a child.

I am the ancient stratum exposed to the faintly salty air.

I am the blunt face of the heaved-up, broken stone,

   I am the silent witness

   to the everlasting crash and song of the sea,

      I stand against the tumbling, roiling crests that

               dash to me,

         break on me,

               climb my height,

         die at my foot,

               and rise, vaulting, surging, crashing, singing,

         to grandly break on me again, again…

         the lyric, rhythms, chords the same

               as at the last or next millennial dawn.

I am the rock. The sea endlessly sings to me.

Good. Enough.

Tarry.

Listen.

 

September 15, 2011

“Chanson de mer” is about the ocean and the coast. It is a respectful imagination of the exuberant power of the natural world around us. I think that’s the best kind of description of a poem about nature. I wrote it on a cloudy afternoon on the massive rock formation that dominates the south coast of Conanicut Island in the Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island. Jamestown, at the southern tip of the island, is the home of Beavertail State Park. I’d love to go back.

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Book review: Shawshank Redemption

A world I do not want to know…

by Stephen King

click here

 

My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2017 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”

 

Take a few minutes on this website to read: my poetry in free verse and 5-7-5 format—nature poems, love poems, poems about grandchildren, and a spectrum of other topics—written in a way that, I hope,  makes it possible for you to know, as precisely as possible, what’s going on in my mind and in my imagination; thoughtful book reviews that offer an  exceptional critique of the book instead of a simple book summary; examinations of history that did and didn’t happen; examples of my love affair with words; reflections on the quotations, art, and wisdom of famous and not-so-famous people, and my occasional ingenuous comments on politics and human nature.

Your comments on my poems, book reviews and other posts are welcome.

*   *   *   *   *   *

 

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A new poem about the right thing…

A new poem about the right thing…

by | Mar 28, 2017 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Language, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections

Think again

about doing the right thing

(a new poem)

 

 

Vanity

 

Is it too hard to do the right thing?

Is it right to do the hard thing?

 

We feel old passion to stand up

and stand fast,

   in our crystal rectitude,

      for the right thing.

We know it, we love it,

   it is a thriving joy,

      manifest in our minds

      and in our hearts.

 

 

 

 

 

The mighty do not marvel.

The minions are not moved.

Other multitudes will not make

a murmur to urge us

to dream of good works,

   they do not encourage yearning

   to do the public good that slights no man.

 

Our prospect is more vain striving,

   or the meaner choice:

   endorse a pale type of the right thing.

 

The hard work—

the imperative reach for some right portion—

is to make our halloo to a lesser incarnation

of this dream that will not live in other hearts.

 

March 11, 2016

You might think that desperate convulsions in the Republican presidential primary in the spring of 2016 could have been the wellspring of this poem. In fact, I wrote it reflectively, as a reminder to my idealistic self that commitment to the right thing is of paramount importance, and that acknowledgement of the realistic possibilities is an imperative precondition for effective action.

Striving for the unreachable is a vanity.

A wise person said: pick battles you can win.

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For a change of pace,

read this book review

of one woman’s desperate childhood,

The Homeplace by Marilyn Nelson

click here

 

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

–

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”

 

It’s easy to remember the sauce

(my nature poem)

“Debut”

click here

 

 

 

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The Homeplace (book review)

The Homeplace (book review)

by | Mar 27, 2017 | Book reviews, Books, Books Commentary, My poetry, Poetry

Book review:

The Homeplace

 

by Marilyn Nelson Waniek (b.1946)

Prize-winning American poet

Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1990

 

Thinking about writing this review of The Homeplace re-boots the cold explosion in my self.

Honestly, there was turmoil in this reading.

Marilyn Nelson Waniek is a respected black poet. I’m an old white guy who writes and cares about poetry.

I don’t read much poetry by other writers that appeals to me. I know this doesn’t make me special. I think it’s an ordinary experience.

When I say much of Marilyn Nelson’s work doesn’t appeal to me, that doesn’t signify much of anything out of the ordinary.

When I say that some of poems wrap their hands around my throat and squeeze directly through to my soul, I mean exactly what those words mean.

It’s not “black poetry,” let’s get that straight. That term necessarily implies that there is “white poetry.” I think there are ways to characterize poetry, but the demeaning simplicity of “black poetry” or “white poetry” isn’t acceptable. I think it’s not possible. Poetry is personal, and it doesn’t have a skin color.

Here’s an excerpt from The Homeplace: these are words from “Chosen,” an understated account of a white Southern master and Diverne, a young black woman who is his slave, and Pomp, their son.

 

“Diverne wanted to die, that August night

his face hung over hers, a sweating moon.

She wished so hard, she killed part of her heart

…And the man who came

out of a twelve-room house and ran to her

close shack across three yards that night, to leap

onto her cornshuck pallet. Pomp was their

share of the future. And it wasn’t rape.

In spite of her raw terror. And his whip.”

 

I’d like to say I think I want to walk a mile in Marilyn Nelson’s shoes.

Maybe I was able to trudge a few steps when I read her poems.

*   *   *   *

Walking on the beach is so personal

Do you remember?…”Take your time,” my poem

click here

 

Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2017 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”

 

 

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Thoughtful book reviews by Rick Subber

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