by Richard Subber | Jan 18, 2025 | American history, Book reviews, Books, Democracy, History, Human Nature, Politics, Power and inequality
what’s right is right…
Book review:
No Constitutional Right to be Ladies:
Women and the Obligations of Citizenship
by Linda K. Kerber (b1940)
New York: Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1998
405 pages
Kerber, a well-respected historian, makes what should be an obvious point: women are citizens, just like men, and they should share all the rights and obligations of citizenship.
She disputes, in compelling detail, that women have a constitutional right “to be ladies” when that is conceived as separating them from a complete status as functioning citizens who are the constitutional equals of men (even the ones they’ve married!).
In my mind, it’s not a “feminist” thing or a “suffrage” thing. It’s a matter-of-fact thing—nothing about it doesn’t make sense.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Oops, Columbus didn’t “discover” America
…but he got close…
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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”
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by Richard Subber | Jan 16, 2025 | Human Nature, Reflections, Tidbits
the humanity…
“Ah, the prayers of the millions,
how they must fight and destroy each other
on their way to the throne of God.”
We always think of our prayers as singular events…
From Tortilla Flat in The Short Novels of John Steinbeck
by John Steinbeck with an introduction by Joseph Henry Jackson
New York: The Viking Press, orig. copy. 1953, 1963.
527 pages
quote from p. 18
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Address Unknown
A friendship corrupted by Nazi hatred in WWII
by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor
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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 | Dec 31, 2024 | American history, History, Human Nature, Theater and play reviews
to be or not to be…
Movie review:
Old Henry
The tension builds slowly in Old Henry (2021, not rated, 99 minutes) and you may be tempted to stop waiting to find out what it’s all about.
Truth is, it’s easy to stay with it.
There are no “stars” in Old Henry, and no Hollywood gush.
It’s a 1906 Oklahoma western that doesn’t need a soundtrack.
There is father-son conflict and bonding galore.
There is persistent necessity to consider the yin and yang of what’s right and what’s wrong and a lot of the in-betweens.
You’ll learn a few things you don’t already know about the real-life Henry McCarty who called himself William Bonney and is known to history as Billy the Kid.
You can take some time to think about this: are we who we were, or are we who we are, or can we be who we want to be, or should we be who our loved ones think we are…
Old Henry received the “Best Feature” award at the 2021 Almeria Western Film Festival.
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Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
“The beginning is always today.”
(quote, Mary Shelley)
so get started…
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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 | Dec 24, 2024 | Human Nature, My poetry, Poetry
doing what’s right…
A man’s job
I won’t sell my trees.
The balsams would go quickly
at “cut your own” prices,
but I tell my neighbors, again this year,
there will be no cutting
on this old slope that spills down
to my little barn.
Day is darkening,
and I move among my trees.
This one, bent and broken
in last winter’s snows,
has grown,
the birds of spring may nest
in its green spaces…
and now, from below,
the boy climbs to me, his head down,
his father’s axe in hand,
he has changed since his father died,
he tries to do a man’s work,
he will have little time
for baseball with the other boys.
“I told Momma I would find a tree,
to make a Christmas for Becky and the baby.”
So.
He holds his axe in both hands,
and he stands straight in my field.
I extend my arm.
“Go find a good one,
I can help you carry it home.”
December 1, 2018
My poem “A man’s job” 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 2024 All rights reserved.
“Tear it up,” says Kurt Vonnegut
“Write a six line poem, about anything…
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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 | Dec 10, 2024 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Joys of reading, Language, Reflections
give “…Pointed Firs” a try
Book review:
Sarah Orne Jewett: Novels and Stories
by Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909)
New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1994
937 pages
Never heard of Sarah Orne Jewett? Give her prose a try.
Jewett’s characters are persuasively human—they are credible if not always completely likable. Her prose offers recurring truths about the human condition. It’s easy to feel good about her storytelling.
This Novels and Stories collection of course includes “The Country of the Pointed Firs,” Jewett’s first-rate short novel. You’ll also find “Deephaven,” the Dunnet Landing stories, and others.
“…Pointed Firs” is an 1896 novel that describes some of the people and places of coastal Maine, and tells their stories with comfortable familiarity, reflective insight, and respectful love.
Can an old fisherman’s consuming memories of his departed wife bring tears to your eyes?
Read the story and find out.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: Shakespeare’s Wife
Germaine Greer went overboard a bit…
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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”
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by Richard Subber | Dec 7, 2024 | Human Nature, Reflections, Tidbits
roosters know much…
An anonymous and potentially wise person said:
“The older I get, the more I understand
why roosters just scream to start their day.”
…and one of my favorite authors says she’s learned from others about the merits of this quick morning prayer:
“Whatever!”
I used to recite this one when I rolled out of bed:
“It’s show time!”
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2024 All rights reserved.
Book review: The Sea Runners
…it informs, it does not soar…
by Ivan Doig
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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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