 Cleary has published a number of full collections throughout his career as well as in many magazines and a prodigious number of small press pamphlets.Martin Mooney noted the importance of pamphlets in Cleary's work ‘architecturally’ shaping different voices and blocks of work.From early in his career much of Cleary's work has been characterised by its conversational tone, one that "seems to aspire to a state of speech that is highly eloquent, almost as if it is a betrayal to have to write down the poem".