Children in the Window
Derek Healy
ISBN 9781068488320
 
Derek Healy has the rare gift of making complex poetic forms look effortless, and equally addresses complex, profound themes with verve and readability.  His work is both engaging, immediate and affecting, while containing rich layers that the reader can return to again and again.
(Anna Saunders, poet and CEO of Cheltenham Poetry Festival)
 
This collection ranges across time and space, with poems addressing subjects as varied as Neanderthals, the Big Bang, Peacocks and mature love.  The section entitled ‘Sonnets for a Wife’ is a particular favourite of mine. The sonnets are expertly written, the form and subject blending seamlessly and each filled with affection, wry humour and vivid imagery.
(Rona Laycock, poet, editor and creative writing tutor)
 
These thoughtful and well-crafted poems reveal a strong sense of time and the forces which shape lives.  Moving affectionately outwards from the home, Derek Healy’s poems travel widely and look poignantly into the past, present and inevitable future, sometimes with humour and often with deep feeling. Behind the collection as a whole is an appreciative and highly observant poet, much concerned with love, mortality, images and meanings.
(Duncan Forbes, poet and artist)