Between Mountain and Sea: Poems From Assynt

'I have always loved the mixture of strictness and susceptibility in Norman MacCaig's work. It is an on-going education in the marvellous possibilities of lyric poetry'

'I have read or re-read every poem [in the Collected Poems], and I think it one of the greatest literary experiences of my life'

'Whenever I meet his poems, I'm always struck by their undated freshness; everything about them is alive, as new and essential, as ever'

Norman MacCaig was born in Edinburgh in 1910. His formal education was firmly rooted in the Edinburgh soil: he attended the Royal High School, Edinburgh University and then trained to be a teacher at Moray House. Having spent years educating young children he later taught Creative Writing, first at Edinburgh University, then at the University of Stirling. He died in 1996.

Roderick Watson was born in Aberdeen and educated at Aberdeen Grammar School, Aberdeen University and Peterhouse, Cambridge. A recently retired professor at Stirling University, he has lectured and published widely on modern Scottish literature and currently co-edits the Journal of Stevenson Studies. His main poetry collections are True History on the Walls (1977) and Into the Blue Wavelengths (2004).