Inquisition Lane

Matthew Sweeney

Bloodaxe Books, 2015 - Poetry - 95 pages

Matthew Sweeney's eleventh collection of poems is haunted by mortality, by other worlds and far-flung places, by visitations and violent events like the Spanish Inquisition. The poems are imaginative riffs featuring troubling companions and troublesome thoughts: ghosts and spirits, anger and guilt, crows and horses, a runaway calf and a footballing elephant. And yet amid the outlandish adventures and macabre musings in Inquisition Lane, other notes are also sounded: the poems can be lyrical as well as exuberant, saddened as well as extravagant. Dear friends are remembered. Faith is questioned. The Catholic Church is interrogated. German monks zoom by on Harley-Davidsons and chocolate is mined by French monks beneath the Madeleine in Paris.

About the author

Matthew Gerard Sweeney was born in Lifford, Ireland on October 6, 1952. He studied German and English at the Polytechnic of North London and graduated in 1978. He was a poet. His collections of poetry included A Round House, The Lame Waltzer, Blue Shoes, Cacti, The Bridal Suite, A Smell of Fish, Sanctuary, Black Moon, The Night Post, King of a Rainy Country, and My Life as a Painter. He co-wrote Writing Poetry and Getting Published and Death Comes for the Poets with John Hartley Williams. He also wrote poetry collections for children including The Flying Spring Onion and Fatso in the Red Suit and Other Poems. He died from motor neuron disease on August 5, 2018 at the age of 65.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Inquisition Lane
• Author: Matthew Sweeney
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books, 2015
• ISBN: 1780371489, 9781780371481
• Length: 95 pages
• Subjects: Poetry / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; Poetry / General