With its pale pink sandstone, picturesque domes and dramatic setting, Drumlanrig is one of Scotland's most romantic castles, its history entwined with that of the country itself. The twists and turns of its story are here captured atmospherically in words and pictures. It took a decade for a medieval stronghold to emerge in 1689 as the palace that greets visitors today. The legacies of three ducal families have combined to create a collection of imposing portraits and rare French furniture. Stately interiors lead to delightful, intimate spaces and an unforgettable Rembrandt. Still home to the heirs of William, 1st Duke of Queensbury, the castle continues to evolve and impress to this day.

One of France's most important modern poets, Eugene Guillevic (1907-97) was born in Carnac in Brittany, and although he never learned the Breton language, his personality is deeply marked by his feeling of oneness with his homeland. His poetry has a remarkable unity, driven by his desire to use words to bridge a tragic gulf between man and a harsh and often apparently hostile natural environment. For Guillevic, the purpose of poetry is to arouse the sense of Being. In this poetry of description - where entire landscapes are built up from short, intense texts - language is reduced to its essentials, as words are placed on the page 'like a dam against time'. When reading these poems, it is as if time is being stopped for man to find himself again. Carnac (1961) marks the beginning of Guillevic's mature life as a poet. A single poem in several parts, it evokes the rocky, sea-bound, unfinished landscape of Brittany with its sacred objects and its great silent sense of waiting. The texts are brief but have a grave, meditative serenity, as the poet seeks to effect balance and to help us 'to make friends with nature' and to live in a universe which is chaotic and often frightening. Introduction by Stephen Romer. French-English bilingual edition. Bloodaxe Contemporary French Poets: 9

Honouring the Word is a tribute book compiled to mark the 80th birthday of poet Maurice Harmon. In addition to being a poet, Maurice Harmon is the leading scholar-critic of his generation in the field of Anglo-Irish Literature. He pioneered its development as an academic discipline and is the author of a number of significant works, from bibliographical guides to headline studies of Sean O Faolain, Austin Clarke, Thomas Kinsella, and others.

The Figure in the Cave selects the prose of one of Ireland's foremost contemporary poets - part autobiography, part criticism, part self-commentary - a gathering, from the mid-century to the present day, that marks a lifetime's critical engagement with literature in both Europe and America. In the title essay Montague looks over his career as a writer; in others he describes a coming-of-age in Ulster, explores his own poetics, and appraises Goldsmith, Carleton, George Moore, Joyce and Beckett, MacNeice, Clarke, Kavanagh, Hewitt and MacDiarmid. Pieces on American literature include a vignette of Saul Bellow, a review of Lowell and an intimate sketch of Berryman. To conclude, the author examines the impact of international modern poetry on Irish writing. Humorous, forceful, impressionistic, enriched with personal and political observation, this dialogue between early and later selves traces the development of the boy from Garvaghey to the figure in the cave, and reveals the workings of a fine poet's mind.

The Bag Apron: The Poet and His Community is part of UCD Press's The Poet's Chair series, publishing the public lectures of the Ireland Professors of Poetry. The Ireland Chair of Poetry was established in 1998 following the award of the Nobel Prize of Literature to Seamus Heaney and is supported by Queen's University Belfast, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the Arts Counci 1/An Chomhairle Ealafon. Other poets in the series include Nuala N1 Dhomhnaill, Paul Durcan, Michael Longley, Harry Clifton and Paula Meehan. In his volume of The Poet's Chair, John Montague speaks of finding his own voice and of 'wandering around the world to discover the self you were born with'. He also shares his thoughts on the long poem format and the relationship between words and music, investigates the challenges of translation in poetry, and speaks about his relationship with Samuel Beckett, whom he knew in Paris.