Praise for the poetry of Thomas Lynch Skating With Heather Grace "This powerful, provocative collection of 42 poems introduces a poet who speaks with authority and eloquence. Often his subjects are commonplace his wife, dog and children, his work and the poems are set at home in Michigan and abroad, in Ireland and Italy. (Several of the pieces are about Argyle, a mythic Irish character.) Like his father, Lynch is an undertaker, and the poems that address death here are sagacious and overcome the risk of morbidity by embracing life while facing death. Other standouts are his tender meditation on his daughter, 'Skating with Heather Grace,' and the heartfelt, gritty perceptions of 'Tatyana'.there is grace and control, indeed virtuosity. Lynch is a poet with something to say and something worth listening to."-- Publishers Weekly "Mr.
Lynch's caustic humor is part inheritance, part the reaction to modern culture of a poet caught between two worlds. Settled comfortably into middle-class Michigan life, he visits Ireland to refresh his memory, as it were, of a time when people lived and died at one with their beliefs.The dire struggle in these poems--and despite strong domestic leanings, Mr. Lynch appears driven to extremes--is balancing life's opposing forces. It's a dilemma he approaches with particular elegance in the title poem, in which he watches his young daughter 'widening her circles' in a skating rink. Poised and self-assured beyond all his expectations, she sets an example for dealing with uncertainty."-- The New York Times Still Life in Milford "With one ear to the ground and another to the heavens, Lynch renders poems that echo mortality's solid thud. The combined perspectives of his two occupations-running a family mortuary and writing-enable Lynch to make unsentimental observations on the human condition, as reflected in Skating with Heather Grace (1987), his debut book of poems, and in The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade , a group of essays that was an National Book Award finalist last year.
The poems of this third collection linger over Lynch's family history, the death of his father, and the recently departed residents of Milford, Michian, who come his way.Other poems invoke the Latin titles of Gregorian hymns in gently irreverent lyric poems that foreground the poet's Irish Catholic childhood ('I had a nunnish upbringing') and preoccupation with 'the bodies of women, / the bodies of men, their sufferings and passions, / the sacred mysteries of life and death.' 'The Moveen Notebook,' a long free verse elegy for the poet's grandmother, tells of an immigrant's affecting vicissitudes. Lynch's American Gothic narratives are.backed by a convincing poetic persona."-- Publishers Weekly "Lynch first came to our attention in 1987 with Skating with Heather Grace , an extraordinary book about ordinary life that spoke quietly and directly to readers.These poems are undeniably--and understandably--dark-toned, but they make you think."-- Library Journal The Sin-Eater: A Breviary "Lynch once again brings together his intricate knowledge of the body and the soul, and the result is a luminous, humane collection that sees religion as a question mark, not a period.
"-- Chicago Tribune Walking Papers "A pilgrimage of sorts through growing old and facing death--subjects that caregivers know all too well. [Lynch's] upfront, unvarnished style is likely to resonate with many who have come face to face with life's most important questions."-- The New York Times.