Skatg W/Heathr Grace

This powerful, provocative collection of 42 poems introduces a poet who speaks with authority and eloquence. Often his subjects are commonplacehis wife, dog and children, his workand the poems are set at home in Michigan and abroad, in Ireland and Italy. (Several of the pieces are about Argyle, a mythic Irish character.) Like his father, Lynch is an undertaker, and the poems that address death here are sagacious and overcome the risk of morbidity by embracing life while facing death. Other standouts are his tender meditation on his daughter, ""Skating with Heather Grace,'' and the heartfelt, gritty perceptions of ``Tatyana.'' Most of the pieces are composed in pentameters, the majority written in a capricious blank verse. Although at times the meter suffers from excessive use of run-over lines, elsewhere there is grace and control, indeed virtuosity. Lynch is a poet with something to say and something worth listening to. (January)