Swimming to Alaska: Poems

Lynch's fine poems suggest we're closest to life when also closest to death--a thoughtful message for these times. There is no safety for any of us, the speaker cautions. Yet when the red fox nods to a falling star exploding to dust in the night, we can't help but lift our faces, too, hungry, mouths open like those / of baby starlings. Through these poems we feel our own urgent desire for beauty that surrounds us still.

Paula J. Lambert, author of The Ghost of Every Feathered Thing

Here is a collection of Doris Jean Lynch's strong poetry of earth and culture awareness. Her work with the haibun form presents the marriage of concise prose with tight haiku. She is a prize winning poet and editor who lives close to family and earth.

"Whether sharing whale oil donuts with Inupiaq neighbors, learning from robins and jays how to "sing by whistling, to praise by chortling," or gazing up at a star-studded sky "rich with the silt of those who have come before us," Doris Jean Lynch travels not just to Alaska but through time and space, Doris Jean Lynch travels not just to Alaska but through time and space. With her gift for lyrical narrative and potent haiku, she helps us to better appreciate the cosmos and our place within it."

Rich Youmans, editor of Contemporary Haibun Online