by Richard Subber | Nov 23, 2024 | Book reviews, Books, Poetry, Reviews of other poets
Teasdale teases…
Book review:
The Collected Poems of Sara Teasdale
by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)
New York: The Macmillan Co., 1937.
311 pages
Sara Teasdale wrote about 350 poems, and some of them are quite long.
She is literate—no doubt about that, there are plenty of classical allusions to the gods.
For my taste, there is no personality in her Collected Poems—she writes “about” stuff instead of illuminating stuff.
In 1918 she won a Pulitzer Prize for poetry—it must have been a lean year.
There are bright notes here and there:
“Ah, Love, there is no fleeing from thy might,
No lonely place where thou hast never trod,
No desert thou hast left uncarpeted.”
from “Sappho,” p. 109
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: To Serve Them All My Days
by R. F. Delderfield
A beloved teacher,
you know this story…
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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”
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by Richard Subber | Nov 23, 2024 | Book reviews, Books, Joys of reading, Language, Power and inequality
men are not women…
Book review:
A Room of One’s Own
by Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)
San Diego, CA: A Harvest/HBJ Book, 1929, published 1957
118 pages
Virginia Woolf was no stranger to controversy, in her writing and in her life. In A Room of One’s Own, she wrote: “…when a subject is highly controversial…one cannot hope to tell the truth. One can only show how one came to hold whatever opinion one does hold.” (p. 4)
Woolf refers to “men who have no apparent qualification save that they are not women” (p. 27) and she quotes fellow writer Samuel Butler (1835-1902): “Wise men never say what they think of women.” (p. 29)
A so-called Modernist, she wrote: “Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its natural size.” (p. 35)
Even this short work is longer than it needs to be. Woolf’s prose just gushes with energy and insight and realistic gloom. One wonders whether a man has ever written such words.
Woolf claims that a writer needs “a room of one’s own.”
I think a writer can do very well indeed by making a space in which to write,
a space in the mind or somewhere in the house.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
The “dime novels” in the Civil War
Think “blood-and-thunder”…
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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”
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by Richard Subber | Nov 23, 2024 | My poetry, Poetry
The Book of Days
The dawn’s early light can be pleasure enough for the whole day.
There are words enough to tell the story of “the temptation of day to come.”
It is my delight to write some of them for your delectation.
Flash
The arrows of day are bright
in the waning waste of night,
how brief their flight
to herald light.
July 20, 2024
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: Shantung Compound
They didn’t care much
about each other…
by Langdon Gilkey
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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 welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Nov 21, 2024 | Human Nature, Reflections, Tidbits
the truth thing…
“Truth lies open for all…”
Seneca the Younger (c. 4BCE:65CE)
his Moral Letters, 33.11
ain’t it the truth…
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Financier
Theodore Dreiser’s villain…
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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 | Nov 19, 2024 | Human Nature, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
76 trombones…
Grace
As we gather here
we learn once more
that each of us is one,
that we hear our own music,
and yet we know
that 76 trombones
sound better than one.
We learn once more
that we are family,
and we like each other.
Food probably was the first thing
that humans shared.
It’s a nice tradition.
Let’s be grateful
for our good food
and our good fellowship.
Savannah, GA
November 24, 2022
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 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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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.
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by Richard Subber | Nov 14, 2024 | My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
that entish slang…
ken
The words of stones
come soft,
and there are whispers,
and the birds’ chirping
is a refrain,
and the trees talk
mostly to themselves
in their entish slang…
Are we listening?
Do we give them moments
to speak as they will?
Can we trust the words
that we barely understand?
Do we need to hear
the stones and their mountains?
Shall we learn from these scant words
a new way of knowing?
Shall we hear the worlds
that exist with us,
persist without us?
Shall we allow those words
to fill our ears and minds and hearts?
Is there new meaning
so near to our ken?
June 20, 2024
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
“The beginning is always today.”
(quote, Mary Shelley)
so get started…
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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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