This Valley

"Paul’s poetry is planted in the order of the earth but stretches, grows organically to enfold the ripened fruit of wife, child, friend. His is the grace of honesty without brutality, deep feeling without sentimentality. His work wears well – and abides within his reader." —W.H. Ryan "Paul Neumann’s poetry engages both intellect and feeling with a subtle blend of nature’s many moods and settings, rendered in rich, vivid detail; each poem culminates in a stunning perception of the unity pervading all nature, a unity that includes both poet and reader. Neumann’s art is so subtle that his poems become a kind of invisible glass through which the reader seems to be looking into the poet’s innermost being, seeing what the poet sees, feeling as he feels. Neumann’s awareness of life’s final days, symbolized by the setting sun, and his acceptance of it as an inevitable part of human existence, leaves the reader uplifted in spirit. From Neumann’s perspective, life flows from and through nature, and this union brings a deep sense of the rightness of all that he sees, and has seen." —Bernard Morris "Paul Neumann’s contemplative poems are tender and wise, humble and celebratory. Here is a father, husband, son, and friend who chronicles human relationships and a life well-lived in California’s Central Valley and on its Central Coast, a true poet in tune with the natural world like few poets have ever been. I love this book. This Valley is a generous gift from a poet at his best. It is our good fortune to enjoy it again and again." —Lee Herrick