Shadow of the Owl by Matthew Sweeney
PBS Wild Card Winter 2020
Simon Smith ‘Set mainly in London

‘Set mainly in London

Lu Xun and Rabindranath Tagore take seats in the family tree above Seamus Heaney and Simon Armitage

“Early in Bitten Hair

is represented here by a diverse set of voices

Shadow of the Owl by Matthew Sweeney <br><b>PBS Wild Card Winter 2020</b><br> Simon Smith ‘Set mainly in LondonShadow of the Owl is Matthew Sweeney's final collection, bringing together the poems he wrote during a year of debilitating illness. He died from Motor Neuron Disease in 2018 shortly after publishing My Life as a Painter, written before he became ill, but which was like all his previous collections preparation for this final work. In a sequence of dark fables, a hapless figure is hounded by a procession of invisible enemies who want him dead. These