Andrew Duncan was born in 1956 and brought up in the Midlands. He worked as a labourer (in England and Germany) after leaving school, and subsequently as a project planner with a telecoms manufacturer (1978 - 87), and as a programmer for the Stock Exchange (1988 - 91). He now works in the Civil Service and is based in Nottingham. He has been publishing poetry since his Cambridge days in the late 70s, including Anxiety Before Entering a Room, Sound Surface and Pauper Estate. He is one of the editors of Angel Exhaust and has translated a lot of modern German poetry. He has published a good deal of literary criticism in recent years, above all The Failure of Conservatism in Modern British Poetry (Salt); Centre and Periphery in Modern British Poetry (Liverpool UP), The Council of Heresy and The Long 1950s (both from Shearsman Books).