Skating with Heather Grace

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." Most of the pieces are composed in pentameters, the majority written in a capricious blank verse.

Publishers Weekly