In an era where poetry often leans toward the abstract, Victor Stringer’s debut collection, ‘Lingering Light: 80 Poems,’ published by American Publishers Empire, stands out for its raw honesty and emotional depth. The book, released on July 19, 2026, gathers eighty poems written over two decades, organized into seven thematic sections that traverse love, loss, childhood, spirituality, memory, philosophical inquiry, and the harrowing realities of war.
The collection’s title encapsulates its central theme: some feelings do not dissipate with time, but linger in the body and memory, resurfacing when least expected. Stringer explains, ‘What unifies this collection is not one subject. It is a voice that keeps chasing the same thing across very different rooms of a life: something true, something that outlasts the moment it was written in.’ This voice, which shifts between confessional and philosophical, insists on writing what actually happened or felt, rather than what sounds impressive on the page.
The book opens with ‘Love & Romance,’ featuring poems like ‘Being With You,’ which traverses Central Park, the Eiffel Tower, and a sunset in Montego Bay to capture the essence of belonging wholly to another. The subsequent section, ‘Loss, Heartbreak & Emotional Darkness,’ confronts love’s aftermath, as in ‘Two Sides of a Broken Heart,’ where a man revisits a beach shared with a lost love, clutching halves of a broken heart charm.
Stringer, a veteran and father, also turns to domestic life in ‘Childhood, Family & Innocence,’ with poems like ‘Daddy, Will You Blow My Chicken,’ built from a three-year-old’s questions, from where the moon hides to whether ducks speak Spanish. This section highlights the ordinary moments that deserve the same attention as extraordinary ones.
The collection deepens with ‘Spirituality, Reflection & Inner Peace,’ where ‘Yogi Time’ describes a meditation encounter with a golden light and a voice urging unfinished work. ‘Journey, Memory & Place’ uses landscapes to process unspoken truths, while ‘Identity, Existence & Philosophical Questions’ probes the nature of self beyond societal roles.
The most striking section, ‘War, Struggle & Warrior Energy,’ draws from Stringer’s military service. ‘A Young Warrior’s Request!’ directly addresses politicians who send young people to war, voiced from a soldier’s perspective burdened by decisions not his own. This section underscores the collection’s political and moral weight.
The book closes with lighter, experimental pieces, including ‘Irish Dancer’ and ‘A Pirate’s Life for Me,’ demonstrating that even a book built on hard-won honesty can embrace playfulness.
Available worldwide on Amazon in Kindle, Paperback (ISBN: 9781971232577), and Hardcover (ISBN: 9781971232584), ‘Lingering Light’ offers readers a journey through the complexities of human experience. For those interested in exploring Stringer’s work, the book is accessible via Amazon at https://a.co/d/0dZ6e3XN. Additional information can be found on his website, https://victorstringer.com/.
