The Tree Surgeon's Gift (Scripta Humanistica)

The title poems reveal Lynskey's gift in what he does best-seeing beauty in the ugly, putting the job, the ordinary work, within a context of wonder and ritual.

The textures of the South--cultural, social, and linguistic--are what make Lynskey's poetry so remarkable. He has the ability to make ordinary life extraordinary and everyday details special. The poems in this collection are a blend of celebrations and elegies, of people, places, and moments. Family history and legends are at the core: a great-grandfather's arrival in Virginia, the generations of labor in the fields of Mr. J.R. Reynolds. When the workday is through, there is time for Southern pleasures--berry picking, or even something simpler: "After the filibuster, our cleric recesses mid-day Mass; I/ cease swatting his lordly flies, pass without blessing/myself, and dash out to watch the breezy sundresses. . . ." Throughout, the poems are strong, personal, full of surging energy and crisp language. The final section, "Biography," is an unexpected leap, dealing as it does with people out of history. And yet these poems, like the others, are sharp and vibrant, with a clean contemporary voice that shows Lynskey always in control.
- Louis McKee, Painted Bride Arts Ctr., Philadelphia
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