Facsimiles

A second collection from a talented young poet. Developing his unique voice, first showcased in Winter Lines (2008) Daniel Healy dazzles with powerful writing pared down to the essentials. Poems that at first appear to be fragments resonate long after the page is turned; cool, sharp language that stirs the depths.

Review :
This is a collection of brief, delicate poems, like sketches made by a few lines but which can create the impression of detailed observation, in this case not only visually but evoking all the senses. Ones first impression is that these are poems of landscape and weather moorland, coast, rain, twilight acutely observed but external. However, the emotional attachments and relationships are there but are implied, while the focus is on some scene or object. Healy often uses the first word as an integral title so that the reader is in the poem almost before he realises it. Replacing /your worn tools/in the box he remembers his father's hands; the poem focuses on surface details: the thick scars/the black nails, then cuts away self-consciously and other/cliched poems/about fathers leaving a gap between, for the readers memory and speculation. Extreme economy can become obscure, only the poet knowing the connections, but that does not happen here. Healys selection manages to convey both image and reality with a deft clarity. In The Moorland the image of land as flesh culminates in the vivid lines the flense/of rain/paring the bone. In poems like The Cottage, At Noon, Exterior and, most overtly, A Landscape he picks out details as a painter does. Late Evening has the style of an expressionist: Seed heads blur/in a light breeze; Flowers of smoke/above the grass. The mood created often implies an emotional angle, even a story, which is only hinted at by the choice of adjective or image. There are poems where Healy is self-critical of his editing of the landscape twisting it to fit/my own expectation but that is what both kinds of artist do. It is his startlingly accurate images which imprint the view and stay in the mind. Facsimiles is a collection well worth returning to time and again. Caroline Clark It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgment should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council. Gellir defnyddio'r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru. -- Welsh Books Council