Michael Ayres was born in Chilwell, Nottingham on November 3 1958, and lived in Dorset, Leicestershire and Cleveland. He gained a degree in English from the University of Hull in 1982, and has lived in Cambridge since 1986. He is the author of Poems 1987-1992 (Odyssey Poets, 1994), and of two pamphlets in the Poetical Histories series - no. 44, 1976 Streets (1998), and no. 51, The Sky That Was Your Guide (2000).