Wolf Tongue

Barry MacSweeney was born in 1948 in Newcastle. After leaving school at 16, he worked as a journalist, mainly in Newcastle, Kent, Bradford and South Shields. He published numerous collections, including an earlier Selected Poems in The Tempers of Hazard, published and destroyed by Paladin in 1993.The Book of Demons (Bloodaxe Books, 1997), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. He won a Paul Hamlyn Award in 1997. He died in 2000. Two posthumous books appeared after his death, both in 2003, Wolf Tongue: Selected Poems 1965-2000 from Bloodaxe Books, and Horses in Boiling Blood: MacSweeney, Apollinaire: a collaboration, a celebration, from Equipage, followed by a further volume, Desire Lines: Unselected Poems 1966-2000, edited by Luke Roberts, from Shearsman in 2018.

Barry MacSweeney was a contrary, lone wolf. For 25 years his work was marginalised and was absent from official records of poetry…MacSweeney’s ear for a soaring, lyric melody was unmatched…his poetry became dark as blue steel, edging towards what became his domain: the lament.