Stan Rice, who died in December 2002, was a poet of unique, uncompromising vision. Joy and brutality, faith and faithlessness, the beauty of truth and, at times, of untrut—these opposing forces come together one last time in his final book of poetry, a haunting collection of psalms. Beginning with his “Psalm 151”—that is, taking up where the Bible leaves off—Rice calls us to his own kind of prayer and contemplation. “Lord, hear me out,” he begins. “At the point of our need / The storehouse shares its shambles.” An elegant, passionate, tragic lament for our condition, Rice’s homemade psalms exhort us indirectly to accept our fate—the world as it is. In the brave, unshrinking manner that has characterized his whole career, Rice has written a profound farewell.
Author
Stan Rice was an American poet and artist and husband of writer Anne Rice (married 1961). He was a Professor of English and Creative Writing at San Francisco State University and retired as Chairman of the Creative Writing Department in 1989. Stan Rice died from brain cancer and was survived by his wife, novelist Anne Rice and son, author Christopher Rice. It was the death of the couple's first child, daughter Michele (1966-1972), at age six of leukemia, which sparked Stan Rice's becoming a published author. His first book of poems, based on her illness and death, was titled Some Lamb, and was published in 1975. He encouraged his wife to quit her work as a waitress, cook and theater usher in order to devote herself full time to her writing. Both encouraged their son, Christopher, to write as well. He is entombed in Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans.
