Mark Ford was born in 1962. His publications include two collections of poetry, Landlocked (Chatto & Windus 1991, 1998) and Soft Sift (Faber & Faber 2001, Harcourt Brace 2003); a critical biography of the French poet, playwright and novelist Raymond Roussel (Raymond Roussel and the Republic of Dreams, Faber & Faber, 2000, Cornell University Press, 2001), a collection of essays, A Driftwood Altar (Waywiser Press, 2005), a 20,000-word interview with John Ashbery (Between the Lines, 2003), and, for Carcanet, The New York Poets, an anthology of poems by Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch and James Schuyler (2003), The New York Poets II: An Anthology (2006) and 'Why I am not a painter' and other poems, a selection of the poetry of Frank O'Hara (2003). Mark Ford is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books. He teaches in the English department at University College, London.