was born in 1953 in the North of England. Since 1989 he has taught in Japan, at present in Sendai, where he lives with his wife and their two daughters. His five books of poetry are Overdrawn Account (1980), This Other Life (1988), which won the Cheltenham Prize, Entertaining Fates (1992), Lost and Found (1997) and About Time Too (2001). His translations, many in collaboration with Marcus Perryman, include Selected Poems of Vittorio Sereni (1990). A literary manifesto, Poetry, Poets, Readers: Making Things Happen is published by Oxford University Press this year.