"The elegiac elements of Walking Papers are interleaved with some striking public poems on the Iraq war and the problems of ensuring good government. Lynch's poetry usually operates at the end of the spectrum where metaphor is less prominent than the possibilities of an apparent plain-spokenness." Sean O'Brien in The Guardian (UK) "Lynch is a writer who chooses to call things by their proper names. Death is death. An ass is an ass. Love is bliss, except when it is something else entirely. And when he puts his intelligence and honesty and lurking wit to observations of human-scale profundities, he finds solace in even the harshest truths." Domenica Trevor in Ann Arbor Chronicle "Lynch is almost a stealth poet. His lines are so seemingly easy and effortless that you hardly notice the quiet craft as he just bubbles along telling a tale." Brian Doyle in The Christian Century "Walking Papers" is a pilgrimage of sorts through growing old and facing death —subjects that caregivers know all too well. His upfront, unvarnishedstyle is likely to resonate with many who have come face to face withlife’s most important questions." The New York Times _________________________ "Walking Papers is a wonderful new collection from Thomas Lynch, one of the most humane and necessary poets working today. If Lynch was on Mastermind, his specialist subject would be the hard-won understanding that life teaches, rather than the textbook "wisdom" that so many other writers cull from books, and, at times, he is daringly barefaced in his ego-less celebration of the world he has come to accept, as in the concluding lines of this book, (from a fifteen line poem called Refusing At Fifty-Two To Write Sonnets):
The future, thus confined to its contingencies, The present moment opens like a gift: The balding month, the grey week, the blue morning, The hour's routine, the minute's passing glance - All seem like godsends now. And what to make of this? At the end the word that comes to him is Thanks. "
John Burnside in The Scotsman
________________ Always a poet to celebrate the little pleasures, he has learned a kind of gratitude for them, a humility before the smallest gifts.
The Sin-Eater: A Breviary just released by Paraclete Press
The Sin-Eater: A Breviary, Thomas Lynch's fifth book of poemshas just been released by Paraclete Press of Brewster, MA. Launched at The Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Cambridge, the collection gathers two dozen, twenty-four line poems -- a book of hours -- on the life and times of Argyle, the sin-eater and includes two dozen black and white photographic images by the author's son, Michael Lynch, and a watercolor by his son, Sean. The poems and images are situated on the West Clare peninsula in Ireland where the author keeps an ancestral home in the townland of Moveen between the North Atlantic and the River Shannon estuary. The poems are prefaced by an "Introit" which examines the nature of religious experience, faith and doubt, communion and atonement.
In "The Sin-Eater," 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
The Sin-eater: A Breviary is available at bookshops nationwide and at Amazon.com
Thomas Lynch is the author of five collections of poems and three books of essays. A book of stories, Apparition & Late Fictions, published in 2010 to critical acclaim, is now available paperback and can be purchased in bookstores and online. A "Classic Contemporary" edition of Skating with Heather Grace, his first book of poems, has just be reissued by Carnegie-Mellon University Press. Paraclete Press has just published The Sin Eater: A Breviary -- a collection of his sin-eater poems accompanied by black and white photographs by Michael Lynch and cover art by Sean Lynch. Thomas Lynch's work has been the subject of two film documentaries. PBS Frontline's The Undertaking, aired nationwide in 2007, won the 2008 Emmy Award for Arts and Culture Documentary. Cathal Black's film, Learning Gravity, produced for the BBC, was featured at the 2008 Telluride Film Festival and the 6th Traverse City Film Festival in 2009 where it was awarded the Michigan Prize by Michael Moore. Thomas Lynch's essays, poems and stories have appeared in The Atlantic and Granta, The New York Times and Times of London, The New Yorker, Poetry and The Paris Review and elsewhere. He lives in Milford, Michigan where he has been the funeral director since 1974, and in Moveen, Co. Clare, Ireland where he keeps an ancestral cottage.
The Undertaking—Life Studies from the Dismal Trade, won the Heartland Prize for non-fiction, The American Book Award, and was a Finalist for the National Book Award. It has been translated into seven languages.
His commentaries have been recorded and broadcast by BBC Radio, RTE in Ireland and NPR. He is the recipient of grants and awards from The National Endowment for the Arts, The Michigan Council for the Arts, The Michigan Library Association, The Writers Voice Project, The National Book Foundation, The Arvon Foundation in Great Britain and The Irish Arts Council.
He has read and lectured at universities and literary centers throughout Europe, The United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and across the United States. He is a regular presenter to professional conferences of funeral directors, hospice and medical ethics professionals, clergy, educators and businss leaders. He has been an Adjunct Professor in the graduate creative writing program at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has appeared on C-SPAN, MSNBC, The Today Show, and the PBS-Bill Moyers Series, "On Our Own Terms."
Frontline's PBS Special: THE UNDERTAKING
Click on the image to visit Frontline's website for more info.
"LYNCH has added another chapter to one of the most memorable records in American letters." --Wm.Giraldi, New York Times
"There is wisdom, courage,and great depth of feeling here. The pieces in this powerful, meditative collection are all beautifully drawn; the title story is a masterpiece." -- Library Journal
"Powerful, unsettling and full of grace" -- Donna Seaman, Booklist
"The cruel radiance of life found in the author's poetry shimmers in this collection of stories." --Susan Salter Reynolds, LATimes
"There is such generosity and grace in his work. To read it is to experience a calm, observant intelligence." -- Eileen Battersby, The Irish Times
"Compassion, mourning, joy and wit all play roles in this tender, insightful hefting of mortality's mysteries." Kirkus Review
Lynch is a superb writer who combines a poet's vision with a deep understanding of the human heart." Shelf Awareness
"Frank, funny and moving, this catalog of loss and the lessons that come with it." --James Cihlar, Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Quietly exhilarating, full of beautiful writing and keen observations." -- Doug Childers, Richmond Times-Dispatch
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