'Heaven-taught Fergusson', wrote Robert Burns in stylish admiration. This tribute was only one of many bonds between Scotland's national poet and the poetic master whom he most loved, but never met.Later Scottish poets have admired Fergusson in similarly strong terms. The ten specially commissioned poems in this book paying tribute (directly or indirectly) to Fergusson continue a tradition of homage while sounding their own contemporary notes. Sometimes gleeful, sometimes solemn, Heaven-taught Fergusson both winks at and scrutinizes a poet who was in several ways strikingly different from Burns. Poets and critics from three continents come together in this volume. In various ways their soundings suggest just what it is about Fergusson that makes him still seem 'heaven-taught'.

John Roxborogh is coordinator of lay training at the School of Ministry, Knox College, Dunedin, New Zealand.