John Montague (1929-2016) was one of Ireland’s leading poets, and was the first holder of the Ireland Chair of Poetry. He published three books of poetry with Bloodaxe during the 1980s. His major poetry publications include The Rough Field, The Great Cloak, The Dead Kingdom, Mount Eagle, Time in Armagh and Smashing the Piano. His Collected Poems appeared from the Gallery Press in 1995, the year he received the American Ireland Fund Literary Award. HIs recent Gallery titles include Drunken Sailor (2004) and Speech Lessons (2011). His New Collected Poems was published in 2012, and followed by his posthumously published final collection Second Childhood in 2017. He translated Francis Ponge’s Selected Poems with Margaret Guiton and C.K. Williams (Wake Forest University Press, USA & Faber, UK).
