"Beyond words! Absolutely brilliant. I love Paul's performances and Tony's and put together makes such perfect sense!! Thank you. Hope to catch a performance soon in our area. So incredible!"   -   Natasha Hanna
"Got the book-had to read it all right away, because it's so good! You deserve all the accolades, and a check too is on its way, thanks." - Walt Burnham
"I've been turning to your work for laughter, inspiration, motivation, and just to simply nod my head in understanding and disbelief. Thank you for being one of my coping mechanisms."  Lou

"Read your book, great variety, constantly tossed in and out, up and down, back & forth, it is successful – Thanks" 
David Shepherd: received A Lifetime of Improvisational Theatre achievement awards 
from the Chicago Improv Festival, Second City, and the Canadian Improv Games.
"Paul Richmond is a fascinating poet - his words are evocative & meaningful. He writes about contemporary issues, about love, about relationships & always with the fine hand of a brilliant observer of the human condition. His readings of his poems are mind-blowing - there's never any doubt in the mind of his audience that he's not only a distinguished poet but also a talented actor who gives life to his words, whether on the printed page or if he's declaiming on stage. I have the good fortune to live in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts. That's where Paul gives readings, hosts regular "Open Mics" and also plans & brings to fruition many, many opportunities for other poets & prose writers to share their work."
Avant Guard Dog Studios Marc D'avegan Rubin
"Hi Paul, I looked at a lot of your fabulous work just now when I saw you'd written to me, and just wanted to say thanks, loved it, brilliant of course, and hilarious, not to mention that it's great satire. Sometimes reminded me of Laurie Anderson's United States, in that league. Sure you've heard all this before, just wanted to add my vote, and say thank you!"
Reviews of Paul's Book " The 24 hr Store was Closed
Kathy-Ann Becker
5 Stars
The Store of Values
Reviewed in the United States on November 2, 2020
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The disappointments and betrayals of all the closed doors of the falsely offered hopes of our country are written on the pages of this book with quiet dignity but plenty of calm healthy anger. Paul offers the superpower of compassion and humor to bolster the reader’s courage to keep paying attention and expecting better. The Great Store of Values we believe in is not open at this time. We can’t get in but we are not alone on the street. Paul presses all our hands and faces against the windows. We see our reflections in the words. We see the promises made on the shelves. Paul as a poet has a unique way of giving us back our tenderness, our humanity, our caring of others, our resolve.. His poems make me feel that we can put pressure on the doors to open by sheer determination to not leave or abandon our expectations until what has been promised has been fulfilled. Our store of values is our Constitution. We are the People. We will read poems to each other about the spirits of Inalienable Rights that are not for sale.

Tom McGuire
5.0 out of 5 stars
 A Brilliant, Funny and Deeply Compassionate Take on
Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2020
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Paul Richmond is a gifted poet and performer of his written word. He is funny, bright, humane and compassionate. All in a deadpan and wryly delicious delivery, Richmond entrances his audience with a depth of empathy for the plight we suffer trying to lead good, decent and compassionate lives in a society where the exact opposite is lived by people of too much power, obscenely too much money and a total lack of peace, love and compassion. The world needs more Paul Richmonds! Read, listen and thoroughly enjoy. Peace, TM
"No matter what topic Paul writes about his deftly applied skewers hit the heart of the matter dead on, even when approaching from an angle. There's a reason he's beat poet laureate. Recommended reading for all generations."
Debbie Tosun Kilday
 A Word Artist Of Our Times
Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2020
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"Paul Richmond writes stories that create vivid images in ones mind, stirring memories of ones own life experiences. His sometimes wry sense of humor makes you laugh out loud with and about yourself. His eloquence with words, his astounding tales, his heartfelt way of telling stories, make him a word artist of our times. Everyone should indulge in reading this book."

Richard W. Horton
 Deadpan empathic rebellion
Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2020
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Like Paul himself, his poems take a poke at safe conventions and assumptions, conceptualization and monetization. He put together a jazz-word fusion band and took it international, forging bonds with empathic creative rebels in Scotland, Sweden, Hungary and Senegal. But he has also rambled through the poetry dens of Austin, my old home town. He's the outside voice befriending other outside voices.
 

John Burroughs​​​​​​​
One of the most unique and masterful of the modern Beats
Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2020
Paul Richmond is one of the most unique and masterful of the modern Beats. Nowhere is his poetic prowess more evident than in his latest book,  The 24 Hour Store Was Closed. From spectral guests that might make Rod Serling tremble to the tragicomic “How to Order Pizza Romantically” and “Wild Parties at the Senior Home,” Richmond’s distinctively engaging poems deftly pry hearts open and lay bare our raw humanity, inspiring occasional outrage and unrelenting empathy topped with a copious dose of his unparalleled sense of humor. I need this book. And even if you don’t like pizza and wild parties (in which case you may want to see a doctor), I daresay you need it too.. From spectral guests that might make Rod Serling tremble to the tragicomic “How to Order Pizza Romantically” and “Wild Parties at the Senior Home,” Richmond’s distinctively engaging poems deftly pry hearts open and lay bare our raw humanity, inspiring occasional outrage and unrelenting empathy topped with a copious dose of his unparalleled sense of humor. I need this book. And even if you don’t like pizza and wild parties (in which case you may want to see a doctor), I daresay you need it too.
The Winning Deixis – Critical remarks on Paul Richmond's poetry book
The 24 Hour Store Was Closed
In his new collection of poems, Paul Richmond takes the reader on an amazing journey through a kaleidoscopic world that ranges from the plain quotidian to the startling bizarre or even para-normal. Like in a modern Decameron, he seems to be driven by the urge to impart and process his, partly traumatic, experiences in order to free himself of their burden. As he declared in a poem, I learnt I was to investigate myself.

In many of his poems, what starts as trivial dailiness evolves into a nightmarish reality with bullying, beating and explosions, or even into a hyper-reality, in which dead people turn up in the most unlikely situations. Paul's poetry is a quest and a report at the same time. Highly cinematic, it 'happens' in front of our eyes and draws us into the happening, whether present or past. With him, we also learn to investigate ourselves, since we discover we have been 'there' as well in the one or the other situation.

One of the main features of Paul's poetic work is its deictic quality, the here, the now and the I/we that make or watch the game. As such, it is perfectly suitable for stage performance. It is the deixis of a seemingly normal reality, but fragile and under threat to be disturbed at any time by either 'the men in uniforms', or the nuclear menace, or the ghosts of the past, or the many other evils lurking everywhere. Turning into an outcast can happen easily and with no obvious reason. Because, like the the veterans in his poems, Paul, too, has a sense that something is wrong. And with his keen sense of the wrong, he daringly addresses many aspects:

Genocide home and abroad
Slavery
Crushing workers rights
Women rights
Our moral compass of racism
The environmental destruction

Paul's militant voice is vehement and straightforward, but the verbal register of his poetry as a whole is highly nuanced and ranges from the daily trivial tone to witty humorous spontaneity, or skilful sophistication. His poetry challenges the reader precisely through its great diversity in both topics and stylistic devices. When you read his verse, you travel in space and in time, and look forward to the next poem for further thrill and revelation.
Aprilia Zank, PhD    Germany







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