The poems in The Blind Stitch interweave family, marriage, love and friendship into a larger world of public life. Set in Delanty's native Cork, and in America and India, the book is sewn together with two main conceits. One is that of the leper, which concerns personal and public suffering and complicity; the other is that of needlework, threads that run through our public and private lives, seen and unseen, stitching us all together.