Book description
The poems in Grimalkin - Thomas Lynch's first publication in
Britain are all concerned, in one way or another, with achieving a
balance in the face of gravity. In each poem, Lynch is looking for
this equilibrium between equal and opposing forces: the gravities of
sex and death, love and grief - all the things that make us breathless
and horizontal, mortal and memorable.
By means of a wry, mordant wit, telling observation and glorious
poise, we are shown the strong tensions that make us human: the forces
in our nature that create, replicate, restore, renew us; and those
that kill us, constrict our lives, silence us. From spirited invective
to meditations on morality, from lyrics of love and desire to a
corrosive flyting to his ex-wife, these poems explore an extraordinary
emotional range and technical facility but, more importantly, they
reveal a compassionate, wise, and genial humanity.
Thomas Lynch is the author of three collections of essays,
Bodies
in Motion and at Rest
,
The Undertaking
, which was shortlisted for the 1997 National Book Award, and
Booking Passage
. His poetry collections include
Grimalkin & Other Poems
and
Still Life in Milford
. He lives and works in Milford, Michigan, where he is the funeral
director, and in West Clare where he keeps an ancestral cottage.
