Sun Behind the Castle

These poems could not have been written anywhere but Edinburgh. This, the most beautiful, wry, challenging and haunting city in the British isles, with its "classic grey - most delicious of lourdness, an ecstasy of glum" is the true hero/heroine of the pages that follow. These poems have the confidence and lightness of words at home in their own streets. In the modern city, Calder displays his customary sharp, vivid observation and notes of pity, kindness and melancholy you don't find, for instance, in MacDiarmid. This is a lovely book. If only every city in this land had a poet like him, what a richer country it would seem. - ANDREW MARR