Derek Sheffield is a graduate of the University of Washington's creative writing program and has published his poems widely in literary magazines such as Poetry, The Georgia Review, Orion, and The Southern Review. Among his awards are the James Hearst Poetry Prize, the Hazel Lipa Environmental Chapbook Award, and the Sparrow Prize in Poetry. He teaches at Wenatchee Valley College and lives with his family in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains near Leavenworth, Washington. (Author photo by Gabi Sheffield)
Derek Sheffield's first collection, written over the course of a decade, is the work of a mature artist assured in his craft and at home in a variety of forms. It is poetry of the human, middle ground, of distances approached but not yet arrived at, of reflection—of "bears watching us watching them." Informed without being literary or academic, at once experienced and digested, the poems in Through the Second Skin share their secrets in intimate, respectful equipoise.
“In carefully chosen moments rendered through sharp and precise images, Derek Sheffield reveals the vulnerability and strength of the soul. There it is on every page—in every flicker and stone of living light portrayed and defined throughout this book. Take note of its many names.”
—Pattiann Rogers
Orchises Press
