Rory Waterman has a BA from the University of Leicester and an MA from Durham. He recently finished a PhD back at Leicester, where he also teaches modern literature, and he wrote this essay during this research. His critical prose has appeared in Essays in Criticism, Through the Granite Kingdom: Essays on Charles Causley (2012), the TLS and elsewhere, and his poems have appeared in such places as the TLS, The Best British Poetry 2012 (Salt, 2012) and New Poetries V (Carcanet, 2011). Carcanet will also publish his first book of poems in 2013. He co-edits the international literary and arts magazine New Walk.