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Literature & Fiction

MacSweeney, Barry

Poetry

Fulcrum

Ranter

Slow Dancer

Desire Lines: Unselected Poems, 1966-2000 presents work drawn from across MacSweeney's writing life. Beginning with The Boy From the Green Cabaret Tells of His Mother, which brought the 20-year-old poet fame and notoriety, Desire Lines brings more than 300 pages of MacSweeney's poetry back into print. His prolific 1970s are represented here by eight complete sequences, including the major political work Black Torch and the previously unpublished long poems Toad Church and Pelt Feather Log. Drawing on archival resources and extensive bibliographic resources, Desire Lines collects the majority of MacSweeney's poetry not included in Wolf Tongue: Selected Poems, 1965-2000. These unselected poems showcase the full range of his capabilities: from raw lyrical emotion to modernist fragmentation, from historical narrative to surreal invention and absurd humour. Including five unpublished poems from the 1980s - including the "State-of-the-Nation Bulletin", Revulsion and the tender, heartbroken 'Soft Hail' - MacSweeney's essential contribution to modern poetry can be seen to its full extent. Alongside translations from the French of Guillaume Apollinaire, Desire Lines includes an introduction and notes on the texts by the editor.

Desire Lines: Unselected Poems 1966-2000

Shearsman Books

Barry MacSweeney wrote his first poem 42 years ago at the age of seven. He has been an alcoholic since he was 16; two years ago his hard drinking almost cost him his life. After a series of life-threatening fits and convulsions, which culminated with his being hooked up to life support in a hospital, MacSweeney underwent rehabilitation through detoxification in several hospitals and an addiction clinic. The Book of Demons records his fierce fight against addiction, the demonic visions that arose, and still arise, and the great love of those who helped save his life.Between times of ravaging, though, MacSweeney wrote the sequence Pearl, included here as a prelude to The Book of Demons. While Demons is a book of hard relentless experience, Pearl is pure lyrical innocence, a poetic sequence of harmlessness before harm set in. Pearl is an ode to the mute Northumbrian girl of the same name, whom MacSweeney taught to read and write on a slate in the rain, his first love.

Book of Demons

Bloodaxe Books Ltd.

Barry MacSweeney was born in 1948 and died in 2000. He published numerous collections, including The Templars of Hazard and The Book of Demons, his last book. It recorded his fierce fight against alcoholism as well as the great love of those who helped save his life--though only for three more years. When he died he had just assembled a retrospective of his work. Wolf Tongue is his own selection, with the addition of the last two books that many regard as his finest work, Pearl and The Book of Demons. Most of his poetry was out-of-print, and much had never been widely published. The title is his. He was a contrary, a lone wolf. His ear for soaring, lyric melody was unmatched, and his poetry became dark as blue steel, edging towards what became his domain: the lament--The Independent. His poetry places a radical, critical energy, unsparing of illusions, and bitter and comic in its self-appraisal, at the disposal of a clear-eyed celebration of the world.

Wolf Tongue: Selected Poems 1965-2000

Bloodaxe Books

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Books by MacSweeney, Barry