Gerald Dawe was born in 1952 in Belfast and attended the universities of Ulster and Galway. He taught for thirty years at Trinity College Dublin. Since his first collection Sheltering Places appeared in 1978 he has published over twenty books of poetry and non-fiction. He lives in Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin.

Contents: Brief Confrontations - A Gritty Prod Baroque: Tom Paulin - Northern Windows/ Southern Stars - A Question of Imagination - How's the Poetry Going? - Invocation of Powers: John Montague - Potent Music: Yeats's Legacy - Critical Mass - The Parochial Idyll: W. R. Rodgers - An Unmoved Mind: John Millington Synge - Our Secret Being: Padraic Fiacc - Breathing Spaces: Brendan Kennelly.