The facts of life and death remain the same. We live and die, we love and grieve, we breed and disappear. And between these existential gravities, we search for meaning, save our memories, leave a record for those who will remember us.'So writes Thomas Lynch in Bodies in Motion and at Rest - the second collection of essays by the award-winning author of The Undertaking.As poet and funeral director, Lynch examines the relations between the literary and the mortuary arts - the connection bet...

In February of 1970, Thomas Lynch, aged twenty-one, bought a one-way ticket to Ireland. He landed in the townland of Moveen, at the edge of the ocean in West Clare, outside the thatched cottage that his great-grandfather had left late in the nineteenth century with a one-way ticket to America. Tommy and Nora Lynch, Thomas Lynch's elderly, unmarried, distant cousins welcomed the young American 'home'. In the words of the author, 'it changed my life'.Booking Passage is part ...

From one of our most gifted writers and thinkers about death and the meaning of living comes a collection of writings about what comes next. Thomas Lynch, funeral director, poet, and author of the National Book Award finalist The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade, has an uncanny knack for writing about death in ways that are never morbid, always thoughtful, often humorous, and quite moving. From his account of riding in the hearse at the funeral of poet laureate Seam...

A selection of the very best from one of America’s most thought-provoking writers: poems on life, faith, doubt, and death that read like memoir, essay, and story. As The New York Times said, “likely to resonate with many who have come face to face with life’s most important questions.”Thomas Lynch—like Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams—is a poet who writes about real things with language rooted in the everyday yet masterfully infused with power:

An aged trade embalmer discovers a new connection to life. As a husband, he promised his dying wife he’d write their story of love and grief, sweetness, sadness. Twenty-five years later, he may not have a first sentence for the story of their marriage but he does have the start of a loving final chapter of his own.If sex and the dead, as Yeats instructed, are topics worthy of a serious mind, then Doyle Shields has a very serious mind indeed. His professional work w...

If life is pilgrimage, Walking Papers are the pages - the notes on the journey, news of the world, letters of introduction and dismissal - found in one's breast-pocket amongst one's effects. And Thomas Lynch, the celebrated poet-undertaker is our guide through a world that's painfully aware of its own mortality; as he says in the powerfully moving title poem: 'Listen - /something's going to get you in the end./The numbers are fairly convincing on this,/hovering, as they do, around...

Hegel's philosophy of religion contains an implicit political theology. When viewed in connection with his wider work on subjectivity, history and politics, this political theology is a resource for apocalyptic thinking. In a world of climate change, inequality, oppressive gender roles and racism, Hegel can be used to theorise the hope found in the end of that world.Histories of apocalyptic thinking draw a line connecting the medieval prophet Joachim of Fiore and Marx. This line pa...

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 ...

America’s much celebrated poet-undertaker Thomas Lynch is renowned for his thought-provoking poems on life, faith, doubt and death. This new retrospective shows the passage of his work over time, ‘a pilgrimage of sorts through growing old and facing death – subjects that caregivers know all too well. Lynch’s upfront, unvarnished style is likely to resonate with many who have come face to face with life’s most important questions’ (Mary Plummer, New York Times). Lynch – like Wallace Stevens...

Charlie the plow mule lives on Cobble Stone Farm. Every morning, Charlie is used to getting up early and helping Farmer Brown plow the fields. One morning, though, something strange happens. Farmer Brown goes to plow the fields without Charlie.Charlie is surprised to see Farmer Brown driving a new, shiny red tractor. Poor Charlie feels replaced. If the farmer doesn’t need him anymore, will Charlie be sent away? Will he lose his home and all of his friends?When Farmer Brown ...

Radically open dialectical behavior therapy (RO DBT) is a groundbreaking, transdiagnostic treatment model for clients with difficult-to-treat overcontrol (OC) disorders, such as anorexia nervosa, chronic depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Written by the founder of RO DBT, Thomas Lynch, this is the first and only session-by-session training manual to help you implement this evidence-based therapy in your practice.As a clinician, you’re familiar with dialectical beh...

Two of the most authoritative voices on the funeral industry come together here in one volume to discuss the current state of the funeral. Through their different lensesâ€"one as a preacher and one as a funeral directorâ€"Thomas G. Long and Thomas Lynch alternately discuss several challenges facing "the good funeral," including the commercial aspects that have led many to be suspicious of funeral directors, the sometimes tense relationship between pastors and funeral directors, the tendenc...