Matthew Sweeney Biography

Matthew Sweeney was born in Lifford, Ireland. He studied German and English at the Polytechnic of North London and the University of Freiburg in Germany. His poetry, which is often fable-like and humorous, shows the influence of Irish- and German-language literary traditions and writers, including Franz Kafka. He writes, as he noted in an interview with Lidia Vianu, “imagistic narrative” that “strays beyond realism” to a mode he calls “alternative realism.”

Sweeney’s collections of poetry include A Dream of Maps (1981), A Round House (1983), The Lame Waltzer (1985), Blue Shoes (1989), Cacti (1992), The Bridal Suite (1997), A Smell of Fish (2000), Selected Poems (2002), Black Moon (2007), The Night Post: A New Selection (2010), Horse Music (2013), and Inquisition Lane (2015). He has also written poetry for children: The Flying Spring Onion (1992) and Up on the Roof: New and Selected Poems (2001).

A recipient of the Cholmondeley Award and the Arts Council England Writers’ Award, Sweeney has held residencies at the University of East Anglia and South Bank Centre in London. He teaches workshops and classes in the community and has served as poet-in-residence at the National Library for the Blind (UK).