'There is no self-pity here in the recollection of severed relationships or evocations of loneliness, rather there is a realization that life is best faced by staring into the terrifying infinite spaces that Pascal spoke of. A metaphysical froideur is never far away in Healy, even in the most domestic of his topics.'

Dermot Healy's poetry distils the essence of a gift he exercises more often and elaborately in other forms — for narrative, dialogue, characterization, and acute insight and observation. In this new work — set in and around his home on the ocean's edge of Sligo, in London and further afield — he captures the every day's ordinary dramas and 'small habits', noting at the same time the hallway 'where something is after happening'.

Moynagh Sullivan in the Irish Literary Supplement enthused about his poems' 'vigorous movement and the feel of dance and joyful noises'. 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.