by Richard Subber | Nov 12, 2024 | Book reviews, Books, History, Human Nature, World history
a corpse in the mirror
Book review:
Night
by Elie Wiesel (1928-2016)
Buchenwald survivor
Stella Rodway, trans.
New York: Bantam Books, 1958
109 pages
In Night, Elie Wiesel tells his story of being a teenage boy in the death camps of Nazi Germany during World War II.
He uses the necessary words, and he speaks from the depths of his being.
He lost his mother, his father, and his young sister in the camps.
He was liberated from Buchenwald by American soldiers on April 11, 1945.
Wiesel recalls that after he was freed, he saw his reflection in a mirror for the first time since he was transported:
“From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me.”
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Home Team: Poems About Baseball (book review)
Edwin Romond hits another homer…
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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”
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by Richard Subber | Nov 7, 2024 | Human Nature, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
in stiff embrace…
duchess with a bird
The hennin is the mode,
it weighs upon her head
but she does not wonder
that it claims the eye,
it is a tower, but a trifle,
the flaring horns are innocent
of finery or fancy,
they trail alike to capes
that hide much of her gown.
She flaunts her wealth and her self,
and marvels as she stands alone
in stiff embrace of the tiny bird,
her new universe, a bird’s horizon,
without joy, nor caper,
she cannot twirl.
The bird does not incline to fly,
it has no song,
quiet instants escape their time,
the bird is mystic,
it does not flail or flee,
she moves her empty hand to no avail,
together they make a tableau.
She who has no name
does not think to share a word,
she feels no need to seek for more,
the bird is indistinct, content,
it stays.
She is a duchess with a bird,
she tilts her head,
her double-horned hat flares,
it makes a scene,
it conjures trailing musics,
and pomp of court.
July 27, 2024
Inspired by sculpture at Birch Creek 315, Linden Ponds, Hingham, MA
Revised based on feedback from Dee Bayne
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
If you’re interested in
romantic historical fiction,
try Rafael Sabatini
Scaramouche and Saint Martin’s Summer
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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”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Nov 5, 2024 | Human Nature, Theater and play reviews
children have real lives…
Movie review:
The Breakfast Club
Which one of the kids in The Breakfast Club (1985, rated R, 97 minutes) is most like you?
Claire (Molly Ringwald), John (Judd Nelson), Andrew (Emilio Estevez), Allison (Ally Sheedy), or Brian (Anthony Hall)?
These are children whose lives you wouldn’t wish on your grandchildren.
Their Saturday detention for various student wrongdoings is a hell-fired playground for growing up and facing truths and learning about the wonderful unknowns of human kindness.
In one brief day they grow and change and assert their special personalities.
They become better people.
The Breakfast Club is funny, it’s sad, and only the kids think there are mysteries.
It becomes a feel good movie.
There’s something more: I imagine that you can’t watch the movie and avoid thinking, even once, “yeah, I was a little bit like that when I was younger.”
I imagine that you’ll take a minute or two,
like I did,
to think about how you’re different now.
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Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Grace Notes
Is it prose or poetry?
by Brian Doyle
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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”
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by Richard Subber | Oct 31, 2024 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Theater and play reviews
slow-moving lava love…
Book review:
The Bridges of Madison County
Robert James Waller (1939-2017)
New York: Warner Books Inc., 1992
171 pages
The Bridges of Madison County was a notably popular new book. However, I’m aware that not everyone is a fan.
If you’re looking for highly stoked eroticism and high-rolling lives that throw off sparks when they touch, look elsewhere.
Frankly, for lots of tastes, good advice is: look elsewhere no matter what you’re looking for.
For me, Bridges documents the chance intersection of the putatively unremarkable lives of Francesca and Robert with all the heat and dazzle of slow-moving lava, without its destructive power. They come together, they permit each other to nourish their beautiful personae and they generate a passion that consumes without burning.
Francesca and Robert come together too late in their lives, after unbreakable commitments have been made to other cherished persons who, regrettably, are not like themselves.
I am drawn to the unsounded depths of their love and their absolute, cascading, undeniable recognition of each other as the unforgettable objects of their burgeoning desire.
They understand that they must be content with the short lifetime of their dalliance. They honor their love by deeply understanding its nature, and by accepting the permanent separation that their unyielding integrity requires.
Robert whispers to Francesca: “…this kind of certainty comes only once…”
The Bridges of Madison County is a love song, a courtship, a delicate primer on yearning, a too brief opportunity to know how it feels to be in love like that.
Give it a try.
p.s. Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep made the movie version with the same title in 1995 (rated PG-13, 135 minutes). You’ll love it if you like the book.
Waller’s book and the movie equally reveal the ethereal bond between Robert and Francesca. There is frank eroticism, with different physical and philosophical elements in the film and book, and a shared electric vitality.
The film and the book offer stylistically divergent life dramas that converge to a singular powerful love, and a perpetual loneliness that Robert and Francesca cannot minimize.
Give the film a try.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: A Cold Welcome
The culprit was global cooling,
500 years ago…
by Sam White
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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”
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by Richard Subber | Oct 25, 2024 | Human Nature, Reflections, Tidbits
mobilizing the English language…
“Success is not final,
failure is not fatal.
It is the courage to continue
that counts.”
Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
British Prime Minister during WWII
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: An Empire on the Edge
by Nick Bunker
The British wanted to win
the Revolutionary War,
but they had good reasons
for not trying too hard…
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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 | Oct 23, 2024 | Human Nature, My poetry, Poetry, Reflections
think a good thought…
Look up
Sure enough, another dawn
released another day,
a chance to see this old world
another way,
to take another step to futures,
a blink in time, oh sure,
but another whole day
to be alive,
to think a good thought,
to pause just once
to really spy the sallow clouds
and glance across the doughy sky,
and chance to see
that patch of personality
in the western span,
to think that, yes,
the clouds have their own time,
in separate beats,
and I can savor mine.
June 29, 2024
(Modified with feedback from Dee Bayne)
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: Saint Joan
by George Bernard Shaw
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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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