Still Life in Milford: Poems [Paperback]

Thomas Lynch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1999

A collection of poems by the highly acclaimed author of The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade, a National Book Award finalist.

In Still Life in Milford Thomas Lynch tenders poems on life and death, history and memory, the local and the larger geographies. "[Thomas Lynch's] poems . . . are as stark and graceful as geese lifting off backwater. The poems trace from the rural midwest to London and County Clare, a quiet elegy of loss and testament. But then Lynch is by trade a mortician, and by craft a bard."—Amazon.com "[Lynch] evinces a steady wisdom drawn from years of passionate attention to daily experience."—Seattle Weekly

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Still Life in Milford is--perhaps unsurprisingly--haunted by death. Its author, after all, is that most celebrated of poet-undertakers, Thomas Lynch of Milford, Michigan. Evidently poetry and undertaking are felicitous occupations for one obsessed with the larger questions, and Lynch finds abundant material in the vacant eyes of corpses, in the pages of small-town obituaries, even in the autopsy notes from Dr. Kevorkian's patients. Yet throughout, Lynch maintains a sturdy, undertaker's stoicism in the face of the cruelest ironies death has to offer. After all, he has "certain duties here. Notably, / when folks get horizontal, breathless, still: / life in Milford ends. They call. I send a car."

In some ways, Lynch holds a pleasingly old-fashioned view of "the human hunger for creation": "the act of ordering is all the same--" he writes in the collection's title poem, "the ordinary becomes a celebration." And he does nothing if not celebrate the ordinary: small-town life, marriage, his Irish relations' hardscrabble lives. Yet beyond these poems' orderly surfaces lies chaos. Writing about a fatal car accident in "That Scream if You Ever Hear It," he addresses an (imaginary? internal?) critic, the one who tells him, "Rub their noses in it."

I know you don't need symmetry or order
so that the biker died in pieces--
the arm with the tattoo reading SHIT
HAPPENS thrown a hundred yards from the one
with NO TOMORROW on it--doesn't impress you.

What will impress, he concludes, is that the bereaved mother's scream, when it finally emerges, "won't rhyme with anything." Faced with the unthinkable, Lynch can only shrug, bury the body, do his job as both poet and undertaker: "And if rhyming's out of fashion, I fashion rhymes / that keep their distance, four lines apart, like so." --Mary Park --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Lynch first came to our attention in 1987 with Skating with Heather Grace (LJ 3/1/87), an extraordinary book about ordinary life that spoke quietly and directly to readers. Since then, he has distinguished himself with the award-winning The Undertaking, a fine account that expands on his profession as a funeral director. That job clearly gives one time to consider issues of faith and mortality, and it's not surprising that the poems in this strong new collection deal largely with just such issues. Here, Lynch recalls his religious upbringing while considering "the problem of evil" and trying to maintain his equilibrium when faced with "another heartsore Friday full of sun." As he muses in one poem, "I had a nunnish upbringing. I served/ six-twenty Mass on weekdays for a priest/ who taught me...to keep/ a running tally of the things I'd done/ against the little voice in me the nuns/ were always saying I should listen to." These poems are undeniably?and understandably?dark-toned, but they make you think. For all poetry collections.?Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (November 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393319733
• ISBN-13: 978-0393319736
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,084,874 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thomas Lynch's stories, poems, and essays have appeared in Granta, The Atlantic, Harper's, the Times (of London, New York, Ireland, and Los Angeles), and elsewhere. "The Undertaking" was a finalist for the National Book Award; he is also the author of "Still Life in Milford," "Booking Passage," "Apparition & Late Fictions" and "Walking Papers." Lynch lives in Milford, Michigan, and West Clare, Ireland.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Quality in a low key, July 12, 2000

By 

M. J. Smith (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Still Life in Milford: Poems (Hardcover)

Still Life in Milford is a book of poetry firmly planted in Catholic culture, firmly Midwestern, firmly small town. Yet Lynch writes poetry with universal meaning - accessible to those neither Catholic, Midwestern nor small town. Like many similar works, it plays off "Catholic guilt"; unlike some works it truly "plays" - it has a sense of humor regarding youthful understandings and preoccupations while recognizing that the youth is the basis for the adult understanding.

An especially touching piece is "The Moveen Notebook" - based on family history and the inheritence of the "home place" in Ireland. It begins: "When I first came, the old dog barked me back, / all fang and bristle and feigned attack." The strength of the poem is in it masterful use of the ordinary - but what an enjoyable "ordinary" to read.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lynch's sensory insight gives goosebumps to my soul., August 30, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Still Life in Milford: Poems (Hardcover)

Thomas Lynch is my friend, my neighbor, our small town's undertaker, but most importantly, Tom is a poet. His dry wit rings through his work. I can hear his voice as I read his words, his words, which lend such beauty and grace to the day-to-day which we call our lives. He brings a sensory insight which gives goosebumps to my soul.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Tingles and warm feelings, both up and down w/ this book!, August 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Still Life in Milford: Poems (Hardcover)

Mr. Lynch delivers the goods for this relic of 20th century Roman Catholicism. Expert at poetry, life & death; Mr. Lynch took me places that I sometimes did not want to go while reading this compilation. Enjoy this over & over!