Preparations for Departure

Preparations for Departure
ISBN: 9781742589459
Publication Date: 1 May 2017

The poems in this transnational, cosmopolitan collection traverse fourteen countries, from Australia, the poet's homeland, to the United States, his place of residence, making stops in ancestral homelands Ireland and England, passing through continental Europe and the Middle East. O'Reilly's poetry continually crosses both visible and invisible borders, excavating landscapes and the local, belonging and unbelonging, cross-cultural exchanges, expatriation, globalisation, exile, identity, youth, loss, relationships, aging, and death.

The speakers in the poems are often in motion or making preparations for departure, unwilling and unable to remain static, always eager to explore.