Danusha Laméris
“A coastal California ranch, a house full of mastiffs, a white hawk, a young woman running naked through the neighborhood at night. These poems dole out humor, surprise, and pathos in equal measure. O’Reilly’s Ghost Dogs takes us to Alaska, the burn ward, the not-so-distant past. Even to the future. These poems are a testament to a wild brand of survival, of how to endure until you arrive, finally, at a place where you can “live clean, /untouched and redeemed.”
Ellen Bass
“Ghost Dogs, Dion O’Reilly’s fine first poetry collection will haunt you the way art should. Bristling with pain, wit, desire, and tenderness, these poems investigate not only “the daily harms” of an abusive childhood, but also the deep solace non-human animals can offer.”
Zack Rogow
“The poems [in Ghost Dogs] touch every sense, her metaphors are strikingly original. Ghost Dogs gives a summation of a life, with the poet finding wells of emotion in the most unlikely places—a pig about to be shot by a butcher, or a thumb she sucked until well into adulthood. There is such a fierce appetite in this book, a hunger for the depths and heights of human experience, described with abandon mixed with great refinement.”
