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  • Published: 15 September 1994
  • ISBN: 9780224039734
  • Imprint: Jonathan Cape
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 80
  • RRP: $29.99

Grimalkin And Other Poems




'It is a great pleasure to have his powerful poems finally available this side of the Atlantic' - Matthew Sweeney

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.

  • Published: 15 September 1994
  • ISBN: 9780224039734
  • Imprint: Jonathan Cape
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 80
  • RRP: $29.99

About the author

Thomas Lynch

Thomas Lynch is the award winning author of three collections of poems and three books of nonfiction, including The Undertaking - Life Studies from the Dismal Trade. His work has appeared in the Atlantic and New Yorker, Harper's, Granta, and Paris Review. His commentaries have appeared in the New York Times, the Irish Times and The Times and are regularly broadcast on the BBC, RTE and NPR. He lives in Milford, Michigan, and Moveen, West Clare.

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Praise for Grimalkin And Other Poems

Thomas Lynch looks into the eyes of corpses and sees their lives and their difficult loves that remind him of his own. And he manages to do this with humour and grace

Matthew Sweeney

Thomas Lynch is at pains to seem the guileless author of poems which simply end up in remarkable proximity to their subjects. In fact he is an artist of great gifts, musically elevating and directing the speaking voice towards a startling power, moving through the accumulation of detail to give a visionary account of ordinary life, doing justice to its error and comedy. If it remains the poet's task to say thigns on behalf of everybody, Lynch shows us how it shoud be done

Sean O'Brien

This thoughtful volume is neither too sentimental nor too clinical about death's role (and the author's) in our lives

Kirkus Reviews

His stately ruminations... mediate between the poles of innocent joy and ultimate disaster without tipping over in either direction

Guardian

He can fashion long, singing lines unafraid of the old elemental resonances of stars, roses, angels, the Latin mysteries of his Catholic childhood

Observer