MARY MONTAGUE grew up in Co. Fermanagh and studied Genetics and Zoology at Queen’s University, Belfast. She worked for many years as a teacher in Derry. Her first collection, Black Wolf on a White Plain, was published by Summer Palace Press in 2001. She is currently living and working in Lancaster.

“The poems of Tribe are accomplished acts of ‘intemperate looking’. Whether the poet’s gaze is trained on wolves in the wilderness or on her own aging parents, the portraits are accurate and passionate. At the heart of this collection is a startling sequence of poems about the painter George Stubbs. ‘Hambletonian, Rubbing Down’ is a triumph; in this major poem, ‘observation and empathy’ bring visionary intensity to the things of the natural realm. For this, our ‘sacred only world’, Mary Montague has written a book rich in praises and laments, surprises and delights.”
—Theodore Deppe, author of Cape Clear: New and Selected Poems

“[T]he trained eye of the natural scientist and the impassioned soul of a poet fuse to create a poetic universe that is nothing short of miraculous. At home in the liminal spaces where revelations still occur, she approaches our fragile natural environment invariably with a sense of wonder and a detached observant love for its creatures. The precision of her sensual, superbly controlled descriptions, are breath-taking. Encounters with the ‘other’ world of our animal brothers and sisters display a sense of tact and empathy which is Keatsian in scope. Tribe is an elegy for a lost paradise, a Song of Songs for squirrel, fox and raven, whale, wolf and gannet, and ultimately it raises serious questions for us and generations to come—how did we squander our inheritance so mindlessly: what have we done with the garden entrusted to us?”
—Eva Bourke, author of The Latitude of Naples