Understated but resonant, John Lynch's These Days

From the title of the book itself to the titles of the individual poems, from the tones and colours of the cover to the absence of blurbs, from the syntax to the semantics employed in the poems, pretty much everything about John Lynch’s first full collection, These Days (Garlic Press, 2022) feels understated.

As a consequence, especially bearing in mind that current trends in the poetry scene seem to be heading in an opposite direction, it might not come as any surprise that These Days seems to have flown under the radar. In fact, there don’t seem to be any other reviews available online at the moment. However, a closer look demonstrates that Lynch’s poems are very much worthy of recognition.

The poems in this collection work in tandem and build their effects when read together, their emotional impact gradually accumulating, page after page. Any quote from them inevitably fails to do them full justice, but the last two stanzas of ‘Vent’ give an indication of their latent power...

…One evening, in the kitchen
I found her scraping what he’d said
wasn’t cooked into the bin,
then she opened the window wider
to let out all the steam.

A tub of Peter’s vanilla ice-cream
amongst the cutlery and saucepans
on the draining board,
she stood staring out,
scooping up mouthfuls with a tablespoon.

Of course, on first reading, this feels like a quintessential kitchen-sink drama! However, there’s a complexity to these lines via the details that are layered to make the scene come alive, while a subtle music also gathers force, especially in the final stanza, in which the final two lines are of particular interest.

From the penultimate line onwards, Lynch’s cadences step up a gear, the soft consonants interspersed with explosions, the aural patterning of the vowels in ascendance. And then the pent-up emotion comes to a climax in the shortened penultimate line before its release in the longer final line, a metaphorical ‘vent’ with an implicit reference to the poem’s title, thus complementing and contrasting with the more obvious physical ‘vent’ of the previous stanza. In this context, deft juxtaposition extends the poem's reach.

As is made clear by the above extract, Lynch’s unassuming approach is actually underpinned not only by a deep understanding of the ties between meaning and language, but also demonstrates an unexpected capacity for deploying sophisticated technique when required to make a poem lift off. These Days is a collection with emotional depth that’s capable of generating its own poetic worlds. Prejudices and fashions might put many readers off, but John Lynch is a skilled poet whose work resonates. Thoroughly recommended!