Overview

"One senses that Kathleen Lynch -- in her brilliant, sometimes devastating book -- intends her title to be read un-ironically. As in Ingmar Bergman films, the poems cast a light on various darknesses that in their exposures, their witnessing, are the essential cries and whispers of poetry. In ""Throes,"" she says, ""The saint flung himself / into a thorn bush to incur / wounds worthy of his joy."" Lynch's poems have that kind of complexity, and seem to know ""We need a face / to express the hidden / face."" When that face is found, as it often is in these poems, it contains a voice, which can make us smile as well as wince at life's absurdities. About the Author Kathleen Lynch's first book, Hinge, won The Black Zinnias Poetry Book Award. Her chapbooks include How to Build and Owl and Alterations of Rising, both in the Select Poets Series from Small Poetry Press; No Spring Chicken, winner of the White Eagle Coffee Store Press Chapbook Prize; and Kathleen Lynch Greatest Hits: 1985-2001 in the Pudding House Press Greatest Hits Series. Her poem, ""Abracadabra"", won a 2018 Pushcart Prize. Lynch won the 2019 Genosko Flash Fiction Award first prize. Kathleen lives in Sacramento, California."

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9781421836263

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Reviews

Kathleen Lynch has a wild imagination and a gift for language as nuanced as it is musical, both of which make this long-awaited collection a pleasure from beginning to end. Today I loved everybody. Not in the generic / I'm-a-nice-person way, but actually. Acutely, the moving elegy Fully Alive begins, and as readers discover, Lynch loves life so acutely that the borders between the living and the dead disappear. In the marvelous Abracadabra, Lynch becomes a master of my cold acquaintance / with how close one can come to death and not die. That knowledge informs all of these poems, without self-pity or self-indulgence. From canned food to castanets to the dead brought vividly alive, in line after memorable line, with humor and humility, intelligence and grace, Lynch reveals herself a survivor, lucky witness / to the calling up of light, calling up light for her readers with the wonder of these poems. -- Lynne Knight, Author of The Language of Forgetting Kathleen Lynch knows how easy it is for the deep things / between people to just float away or be distorted by Tooraloora Lies. Using only words, here's a poet who astonishes us again and again, as she finds perfect metaphors and images to tell rich stories and mine Ineffable thoughts and emotions. Against the odds, Lynch is grateful to be a Lucky Witness for her own Variegated life and for the lives she has touched and been touched by. There is much joy here, quiet and vatic; frequently, wit and humor (try her oysters!); there is also pain, sorrow, even terror; and always compassion. We are lucky to have so true a witness. -- David Alpaugh, Author of Counterpoint and Heavy Lifting

"Kathleen Lynch has a wild imagination and a gift for language as nuanced as it is musical, both of which make this long-awaited collection a pleasure from beginning to end. ""Today I loved everybody. Not in the generic / I'm-a-nice-person way, but actually. Acutely,"" the moving elegy ""Fully Alive"" begins, and as readers discover, Lynch loves life so acutely that the borders between the living and the dead disappear. In the marvelous ""Abracadabra,"" Lynch becomes a master of ""my cold acquaintance / with how close one can come to death and not die."" That knowledge informs all of these poems, without self-pity or self-indulgence. From canned food to castanets to the dead brought vividly alive, in line after memorable line, with humor and humility, intelligence and grace, Lynch reveals herself ""a survivor, lucky witness / to the calling up of light,"" calling up light for her readers with the wonder of these poems. -- Lynne Knight, Author of The Language of Forgetting Kathleen Lynch knows how easy it is for ""the deep things / between people"" to ""just float away"" or be distorted by ""Tooraloora Lies."" Using ""only words,"" here's a poet who astonishes us again and again, as she finds perfect metaphors and images to tell rich stories and mine ""Ineffable"" thoughts and emotions. Against the odds, Lynch is grateful to be a ""Lucky Witness"" for her own ""Variegated"" life and for the lives she has touched and been touched by. There is much joy here, quiet and vatic; frequently, wit and humor (try her oysters!); there is also pain, sorrow, even terror; and always compassion. We are lucky to have so true a witness. -- David Alpaugh, Author of Counterpoint and Heavy Lifting"

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