Pattern Evidence

In Pattern Evidence, his final collection, Michael D. Riley sifts through the evidence of ordinary life in search of the patterns that lend shape and meaning to our days. Like a forensic scientist in search of the telling clue, the poet scrutinizes his loves and his losses, and like a trial attorney in pursuit of the truth, he interrogates and cross-examines participants in his own past and in the drama of human existence. Set largely in the suburban world outside Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Riley’s pages are filled with friends and neighbors, lovers and grandmothers, pines and pin oaks, lawn mowers and snow blowers, all of which body forth the mystery of daily-ness. This book documents Riley’s evolution as an artist, offering poems that span his career from early to late, demonstrating the poet’s characteristically broad range of interests and, simultaneously, his constant return to those things that matter most, namely, family, faith, and his devotion to his art. Pattern Evidence constitutes the summation of a lifetime of close and careful observation, and showcases Riley’s gifts as a poet: his keen eye, his sharp wit, his capacious mind, his practiced hand, and his large heart. This book is a final farewell to and a celebration of a life well-lived and well-loved.

Michael D. Riley, who passed away on February 23, 2019, shortly after completing Pattern Evidence, published six collections of poetry, most recently Ordinary Time: Poems for the Liturgical Year (Wipf & Stock, 2016). His poems appeared in many periodicals, including Poetry, Poetry Ireland Review, Rattle, America, and Southern Humanities Review, and in two recent anthologies (The Book of Irish American Poetry: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present and Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust). He was emeritus professor of English from Penn State University and lived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.