In Real Life: Poems - Paperback

by Maegen McAuliffe O'Leary (Author)

In Real Life is a freight train ride through the creative landscape of poet Maegen McAuliffe O'Leary's imagination. In a post-truth age where boundaries between illusion and reality are alarmingly porous, In Real Life confronts what is real, what is death, what is magic, what is God, what is poetry, and what does any of it matter when life is "a big game of fuck fucks"?
McAuliffe O'Leary holds no punches, dissecting the 21st-century human impulse to "make something markedly profitable", despite the ethically ambiguous dilemma that "Nothing comes / from nothing and you can't sell nothing / except we do / all the time." Unflinchingly direct, beautifully honest, and sharply written, In Real Life will haunt readers with its unsparing reminder that "Every choice made is a ripple // through reality. Half god, / we are. I've seen the wings. / All fluff and no future. Butterflies / trapped in meat."

Poetry for real life, in real life.
Maegen McAuliffe O'Leary is a poet and artist from the Pacific Northwest. Her work focuses on the contemporary human experience as it intersects feminism, matrimony, motherhood, magic, creative expression, and the human body and its place in nature. She is the author of Bodies to Bury the Hunger (2022); Full Belly: Poems (2024); Richest Bastard in the Poorhouse: Poems for the Proletariat (2025); Stuffed: Love Poems for Assholes (2025); and In Real Life (2026).

McAuliffe O'Leary is the founder of The Finished Project, a creative communications company inspired by the sacred feminine forces of creativity, courage, compassion, and communication. The Finished Project supports living artists and women-owned, small business through an online retail platform that promotes poetry for real life, in real life. Visit TheFinishedProject.org to learn more.