Lingering Shadows

LINGERING SHADOWS is beautifully stirring, enormously evocative with sharply drawn details and powerful emotions of melancholy, compassion, love, regret and joy. I feel that I got these amazing glimpses into the Rice’s soul.

Maryland State Senator Jamine Raskin
Author, YOUTH JUSTICE IN AMERICA and
OVERRULING DEMOCRACY:
SUPREME COURT v. THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

Paul Rice does not follow the forms used by Samuel Johnson or Thomas Hardy, but he shares their precision, their range, and sense of setting. Both, I think, would honor these poems, particularly one like “Tastee Diner Counter Guys.” Every shadow depends on light.

Mary Ann Harrell, Editor (Retired)
National Geographic Society Books

There was a fine fellow name Rice
Asked for comments on poems once or twice
Wrote a poem ‘bout a friend
And found in the end
He’d to pay an incredible price

Now Rice’s first name it is Paul
He wrote of his friends short and tall
Twas to be for a book
So they each took a look
And were thrilled to be in it at all

LINGERING SHADOWS, its name
Gave to each a legitimate claim
Without even a thought
Their spirit was caught
And changed the whole world, without fame.

Patty Frakes, Editor (Retired)
National Geographic