The Reed Bed

This new collection of poetry should appeal to the same readers. Healy's poetry distils the essence of a gift he exercises to such success in his prose works: narrative, dialogue, characterization, and an acute sense of insight and observation. These new poems are set in and around his home on the ocean's edge of Sligo, in London, and further afield -- he captures the day's "small habits" and "ordinary dramas, " noting at the same time the hallway "where something is after happening." Rough-edged and refreshing, The Reed Bed displays further instances of idiosyncratic comedy and convinces us of a singular capacity to be at once visionary, quirky, and moving.