Stranger in the House

Brendan Cleary’s poems have never been for the squeamish or faint hearted. They smack of the streets around us. His often manic personas confront their demons, lay bare their hearts and reveal the anguish of their personal disorder in the city’s terrain. “Stranger in the House” sees Cleary in the realm of the urban epiphany. Tragic, sad, but darkly comic, his poems speak for the dispossessed, the bedsit dwellers, the losers in love.

“It was ringing in my ears when I put down Sacrilege.” – Justin Quinn, Irish Studies review

“Brendan Cleary is renowned for performances of his poetry, but he is not a performance poet he is a poet who is a good performer… he is as clear on the page as he is on the stage.” – Milner Place