Having won an Eric Gregory Award for his poetry in 1975 and published collections in the mid-1980’s including The Floating World (Pig Press) and Brief Lives (Oasis Books), Alasdair Paterson only recently returned to writing after a 20 year gap with on the governing of empires (Shearsman, 2010). In 2011 he published two pamphlets: Brumaire and Later (Flarestack Poets) and in arcadia (Oystercatcher Books). He is now retired after a career directing the work of academic libraries in Britain and Ireland and travelling extensively, particularly in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union. He lives in Exeter.