Into the All Empty

This debut book of poems is a macrocosm of breathtaking wisdom. Into the All Empty is for anyone who has endured loss, regret, and loneliness. These brave, wildly delightful poems deftly interweave physics and quantum theory, awakening the reader and sparking transformation. 

During the span of her life, poet Susan Lynch went from high school dropout, to rock star, to 50-something studying English at Oxford. Now, at nearly seventy, she invites us to join in her remarkable odyssey.

Praise for INTO THE ALL EMPTY

“Lynch hits the poems into outer space, Into the All Empty, and there’s music all the way back.”  –Beatrix Gates, author of The Burning Key, New & Selected Poems (1973-2023)

“Called “poems,” these writings are portals, or amphibians, or creases upon which fourth & fifth dimensions emerge as factual as oak trees, past lovers, flawed philosophers, or “a brace of owls.” I felt each line pull at a particular, unremembered need—firmly, but not to the point of breakage—a pull that, in turn, made each thread passed through quiver across the whole fabric. The whole fabric? Yes, the whole. Even if it cannot be articulated in words, what Susan Lynch returns to, for, and in us can, indeed, be felt.”

— Katie Ford, author of If You Have to Go

When I read Susan Lynch's Into the All Empty, hidden forms of curiosity and delight I didn't know that I (still) had came forward. These poems elevate the reader, asking you to rise into their occasions. These wise, bravehearted poems are regal. They are full of earned wisdom. But they are also full of human-scale wit and splendor, and the voice of this poet turns the process of revelation into song with memorable ease: "We carry the cosmos in our hearts. And most of it is completely dark." Turns out everyone is welcome here to this feast of wisdom—any of us, that is, who need truth as much as we need water (which is all of us).

  — Katie Peterson, author of Fog and Smoke

Susan Lynch is a real writer of a philosophical lyric poem. Susan is a writer who has found her voice. And it is a mature voice. These poems are perfectly shaped; their juxtapositions provocative. I think of her as working in the tradition of the poem of the big claim. So William Bronk, Charles Olson, William Carlos Williams. But with a feminine and at moments feminist attention. It is interesting to see a project as sophisticated and mature as this is.

  — Juliana Spahr, author of That Winter the Wolf Came

ISBN: 978-1-63398-166-9, paperback, 56 pages

Published October 3, 2023