Matthew Sweeney (1952-2018) was born in Lifford, Co. Donegal, Ireland. He moved to London in 1973 and studied at the Polytechnic of North London and the University of Freiburg. After living in Berlin and Timisoara for some years, he returned to Ireland and settled in Cork. He died in August 2018 from motor neurone disease. His poetry collections include A Dream of Maps (Raven Arts Press, 1981), A Round House (Raven Arts Press, 1983), The Lame Waltzer (Raven Arts Press, 1985), Blue Shoes (Secker & Warburg, 1989), Cacti (Secker & Warburg, 1992), The Bridal Suite (Jonathan Cape, 1997) and A Smell of Fish (Jonathan Cape, 2000), Selected Poems (Jonathan Cape, 2002), Sanctuary (Jonathan Cape, 2004), Black Moon (Jonathan Cape, 2007), The Night Post: A Selection (Salt, 2010); and four from Bloodaxe, Horse Music (2013), Inquisition Lane (2015), My Life as a Painter (2018) and the posthumously published Shadow of an Owl (2020). Black Moon was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and for the Irish Times Poetry Now Award
