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Thomas Lynch

Walking Papers: Poems Hardcover – November 1, 2010

by Thomas Lynch (Author)

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A decade's worth of poems by one of our most reliable witnesses, National Book Award finalist Thomas Lynch.

In his fourth collection of poems, Thomas Lynch attends to flora, fauna, and fellow pilgrims: dead poets and living masters, a former president and his factotums, a sin-eater and inseminator. Faux-bardic and mock-epic, deft at lament and lampoon, fete and feint, Lynch's poems are powerful medicines, tonics for the long haul and home-going.

from "Walking Papers"
     You can think of it as punctuation
     and maybe take some comfort from that, friend―
     a question mark or exclamation point―
     no matter, we're all sentenced to an end,
     the movers and the shakers, bon vivants,
     all ne'er-do-wells and nincompoops, savants,
     sage and sluggard, deft and daft alike:
     everyone's given their walking papers.

Print length

96 pages
Language

English
Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

November 1, 2010
Dimensions

5.8 x 0.6 x 8.6 inches
ISBN-10

0393042081
ISBN-13

978-0393042085
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Thomas Lynch’s stories, poems, and essays have appeared in Granta, the Atlantic, Harper’s, the New York Times, and elsewhere. His first collection of essays, The Undertaking, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Lynch lives in Milford, Michigan.

Product details

Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company (November 1, 2010)
Language : English
Hardcover : 96 pages
ISBN-10 : 0393042081
ISBN-13 : 978-0393042085
Item Weight : 8.3 ounces
Dimensions : 5.8 x 0.6 x 8.6 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,435,951 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #8,207 in American Poetry (Books)

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tex norman

One of our Great Living American Poets

Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2014

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I had three writers I considered my favorite living poets: Ted Kooser, Billy Collins, and Stephen Dunn. I have added Thomas Lynch to my list: making it 4 favorite living poets. I bought this book after seeing Mr. Lynch on a PBS documentary about the funeral business and American's views of death. I thought this funeral director had just written a couple of poems about his work. Mr. Lynch quoted some of his poems and I found them moving. I kept thinking about those poems and just wondered if maybe he'd published them. I found several books published: poetry, essays, fiction. I got this book, Walking Papers first. It is just great. And all the works are NOT about the funeral business. The man has a gift for writing, and anyone who likes contemporary poetry should add Thomas Lynch to your list of poets to read. These are NOT esoteric poems, they are easy conversation like poems that take language and allows the words to tumble and turn and twist like falling leaves as each word, each line reveals just a little more than you expect.

6 people found this helpful

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Osaggie

Beautiful

Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2013

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All Tom Lynch's books are utterly beautifully written, dealing with the most profound human experiences, most particularly with death in our culture. He is an undertaker himself, and so very sensitive and caring, but never, ever pushing any gag inducing sentiments.

3 people found this helpful

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mary donegan

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2015

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Love all of Thomas Lynch's writings.

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Charles W. Brice

Death Be Not Proud

Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2015

I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a poetry book so much as I have enjoyed Thomas Lynch's, "Walking Papers." Every poem contains something meaningful, but also most of them contains something we can laugh at. Lynch is a funeral director from a long line of funeral directors, so these poems are infused with an awareness of mortality, but rarely with morbidity. Lynch has a tremendous sense of humor and it comes through in these poems: think a religious Bukowski who revises or an Irish Billy Collins or a Seamus Heaney that doesn't require a book or Irish mythology to follow. You all are in for a tremendous read with this one. Here's an example:

Lament

In memory of Robert Foley, 1927-1999

You always said I’d get you in the end—
the joke long-standing between us, Foley—
as if the twenty years you had on me
guaranteed you an earlier heaven.
We’d grin and get back to our local jobs—
your civic duties, my slow processions.
You always had a head for numbers, Bob,
and could be counted on to keep accounts of things:
how principals and interests get amortized,
when enough’s enough, the lives and times
of ancestors, the birthdays of grandchildren,
Lenten observances, the rites of spring.
So here we are, your priest, your townspeople,
your brothers and sisters and their families,
your sons and daughters and their sons and daughters
your beloved Virginia, all here, gathered round
to these grave duties. We give you back to God
a little grudgingly. We want to keep
your easy laughter, your fierce protections,
your honor and your loyalty and graces.
Still, even in the ground we see reflections:
the image of your hope in these men’s faces,
your love in their sisters’, your faith in their mother.
Good husband, father, brother, kinsman, friend—
you got it right—in the end, we get each other.

~Thomas Lynch. Walking Papers, Norton, 2010

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