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...

Desire Lines presents work drawn from across the author's writing life, and brings close to 400 pages of his work back into print. Drawing on archives and extensive bibliographic resources, this volume collects the majority of MacSweeney's poetry not included in Wolf Tongue (2003), together with an introduction and notes by the editor.